Agenda - 10-21-1997 - 11c - Laserfiche WebLink

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9 Orange County Board of Commissioners Page 2 October 16, 1997 I think the easiest way to understand the legal issues surrounding the recommended benefits is to "follow the money." What I mean by that is that the landfill enterprise can spend landfill enterprise money on those benefits which are related to and incident to the landfill operation. Those that are not must be legally justified using some other public purpose. For that reason,it is immaterial whether implementation of the recommendations affects people who have lived with the landfill for some period of time or have just become landfill neighbors or will do so in the future. The extension of public water and sewer to the community identified in the Report is the fast recommendation that has significant legal implications. Using the "follow the money" approach, my thoughts on the water and sewer recommendations follow. Extending a sewer line to the landfill for landfill operations,including leachate collection, is a legitimate expense of the landfill enterprise and presents no legal problem. The same is true, I think, of a water line extension to serve the landfill itself. Extending water lines to those in the community who now receive their water from wells may be justified and as a landfill expense on the theory that the water from the wells is contaminated or could become so. It seems to me that the community of homeowners or lot owners who could receive public water at the landfill enterprise expense would have to be determined based on a reasonable set of criteria. This set of criteria should,of necessity,include some factual basis,including inferences from facts known, that the risk of well contamination is more than imagined. In my opinion no other extension of public water or sewer can be done or paid for by the landfill enterprise. This is so for more than one reason. However, it is enough to say that North Carolina General Statute § 153A-292, which provides for the imposition of fees for the use of a County collection and disposal facility, in subsection (b) limits the use of the fee imposed for the use of a disposal facility. "The fee for use may not exceed the cost of operating the facility...." Since the landfill enterprise cannot pay for the extension of public water and sewer beyond what is discussed above, public water and sewer extensions serving other purposes must be justified under some other public purpose theory and paid for using some other source of funds. There are planning issues associated with the extension of public water and sewer recommended in the Report of the Landfill Owners Group/Landfill Neighbors Working Group. Gene Bell's WATER AND SEWER EXTENSION INTO THE RURAL BUFFER memorandum addresses most if not all of those planning issues. I know that those planning issues have not been resolved However, for purposes of discussing the legality of extending public water and sewer to the Orange Regional Landfill community identified in the Report, I will assume that there will be an acceptable resolution of the planning issues. Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro all have the power to spend general fund revenue to provide public water and sewer to the citizens in their jurisdictions (municipal boundaries for the towns; outside of municipal boundaries for the County). Further, it is