Minutes 01-26-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mayor Chilton said that he would assume that there would be collaboration between the County and the towns. Alderman Coleman said that he wanted updates from the towns before commenting on this. 2. Updates from the Towns Hillsborough Town Manager Eric Peterson said that Hillsborough would go along with the Countywide solution. Carrboro Interim Town Manager Matt Efird said that the Town of Carrboro has plans in place to begin transferring waste to Durham. It will require additional personnel and equipment, as the trip to Durham's transfer station is an additional 20-25 miles each way and about 40 minutes each way for the drivers. The Board of Aldermen still needs to discuss the preferred alternative, but from an operational standpoint, the plan is already in place, but at significant cost Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil said that the Town of Chapel Hill conducted a pilot program and chose to take its trash to Durham to see how much it would cost. The additional cost is about $600,000 a year. This has caused them to look at the entire solid waste operations. Staff is currently interviewing for a consultant to look at the solid waste operations. ~' Chair Pelissier asked when this process would be complete and Roger Stancil said that they are in the last steps of identifying the consultant and the hope is to move this along rapidly. "' °'-' " s ~~, MORE COMMENTS ON LANDF/LL CLOSURE Mayor Chilton said that his concern is that it does not seem responsible to close the landfill and have no other plan or facility in place in Orange County. He does not think that there is room in the budget to come up with this kind of money and he does not think the taxpayers can afford the tax increase to make it happen. Alderman Michelle Johnson arrived at 7:33 PM. Mayor Chilton said that i~"Ps also not a responsible use of diesel fuel to send the trash to Durham. It will take about 65,d00 gallons of diesel fuel per year extra to drive their trash to Durham. He said that he reati• through the minutes of the County Commissioners and the Town Council of Chapel Hill regarding this landfill siting from 1972. He said that repeatedly, all through the minutes and articl~s, the landfill was referred to as a 40-50 year facility. This would mean that the closing wo~Gld be somewhere between 2012 and 2022. He said that they could build a transfer station if `all entities would commit, and the landfill could be kept open until it was built. He suggested the site at the corner of NC 86 and I-40. He said that his board passed a resolution in support of this on Tuesday night. He said that if the landfill is closed in late 2013, that is still 17 months away. He wonders if 17 months is enough time to build a transfer station, and if it takes longer, then they could discuss short-term arrangements to transfer their trash to Durham. He said that he felt frustrated by this issue and he is concerned that all the parties want to walk away. He asked the Board of County Commissioners to direct staff to look at the feasibility of fhe proposed site on I-40 and NC 86. He said that $750,000 is an outrageous amount of money to take trash to Durham. He said that the individual taxpayer gets nothing extra for this investment. ,,