Minutes - 02-21-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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years with the burden of the County's solid waste. He said that expanding that burden with another waste site would be one more step toward the disintegration of that historic community. Mr. Pettit added that Shaping Orange County's Future is interested in the concept of community building but recognizes that you need not tear a community apart in order to build another one. Rebekah Asbury, a graduate student in the ecology curriculum at UNC, referred to a report by the Triangle Land Conservancy entitled "Rating Land in Orange County by its Wildlife Value." She pointed out that the Greene Tract falls into the third highest ratings category as being a valuable resource far maintaining wildlife habitat. She said that it seems especially crucial that the results of the Environmental Impact Study be made available to all stakeholders as soon as possible and that everyone gives special weight to those results. Ms. Asbury added that an important ecological question to ask is whether rezoning 60 acres of the Greene Tract would allow Orange County to maintain its {"declining") value as a landscape with wildlife. Donna P. Rogers, who is on an academic sabbatical from the EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards and working on a masters degree in Environmental Management at Duke University, recommended using the Greene Tract for environmental education. She suggested building an outdoor classroom there--complete with nature trails, tree identification tags, butterfly gardens, and wildflower beds. Ms. Rogers noted that this would give children an environmental education that would instill in them a sense to preserve, conserve and sustain the earth for their children. Jo Ann Garvin, a graduate student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC, spoke about environmental justice. Even though only one percent of waste is toxic, she said, it is frightening to have one percent of thousands of tans in your back yard. Ms. Garvin noted that rezoning the tract would be one way to solve solid waste problems, but it would add to the burden that the Rogers Road residents have carried for the rest of the Town. She said that she had trusted Town leaders 30 years ago when they promised that there would be a park there when the landfill was covered over. She pointed out that the "unwanted land use" had been placed in a small neighborhood of people who are poor and mostly black. Ms. Garvin pointed out that a transfer station only needs 10 acres and wondered why that could only be found in the same neighborhood as the landfill. She said that the Town's greatest need is to do what is right. Ms. Garvin expressed understanding that Officials thought that they had no choice. But, she said, "when they are about to do a terrible injustice there is always another choice." Jordy Koski, a senior anthropology student, said that he was troubled by ambiguities in the process. He stated that questions that had arisen from these ambiguities should be answered before a decision is made. Mr. Koski asked why the County was asking for 60 acres when its own waste management consultant found that a transfer station only requires ten to twelve acres? He also noted that dumping is found much more often adjacent to minority neighborhoods, and suggested that it would better fit the Town's sense of equity to halt this practice. Mr. Koski asked if it would be better to defer judgement until all stakeholders have had a chance to review and reflect upon the information that had recently been gathered. He suggested that the Greene Tract be taken out of the Interlacal Agreement and that the Town Council obtain more information about the land in their consideration of this process. Ms. B. J. Norwood displayed the inhalers and medicines that she used, perhaps because of arsenic in her water, she said. Ms. Norwood noted that for many years much of the landfill had not been regulated and was not lined. She asked for compassion from public officials, and requested that they not use the Greene Tract in the proposed manner. Ms. Norwood said that the land had been promised as a sanctuary. She pointed out that there are white tail hawks and alligator snapping turtles there, neither of which is indigenous to the area. She said that the neighborhood needed something from the Town which said "you people have suffered enough." Reverend Robert Campbell, a Rogers Road neighborhood resident, stated that the elected officials have a responsibility to change the "game" that was started many years ago regarding the landfill. He said that the neighborhood is concerned about unseen harmful effects, such as rodents, buzzards, early morning noise,