Minutes - 20080916 - Transfer Station

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1 Steve Wing is on the faculty of the UNC School of Public Health faculty and he has been 2 looking at environmental justice issues in public health. He said that the United States as a 3 whole is experiencing increasing production of waste, and this is a problem in counties all over 4 the country. He said that North Carolina is the only state of the Union where there is published 5 research showing convincingly that communities of color and low-income communities bear a 6 disproportionate burden of solid waste facilities. This includes transfer stations. He said that 7 wealthy communities in this country contribute a highly disproportionate amount of solid waste 8 because they consume more. If these communities can put their waste in low-income 9 communities and communities of color that lack political clout, it breaks the feedback loop that 10 would lead them to want to do something about reducing the amount of waste produced. He 11 said that this is the basic important policy message about environmental justice. If wealthy 12 communities have to deal with waste, they will find ways to deal with it and will have the political 13 clout to make those changes. He said that the School of Public Health has worked with the 14 Rogers Road community for years. He said that one of his classes worked with this community 15 and there are clearly exposures to landfill gases near there. He urged the County 16 Commissioners to strike the Eubanks Road site from the list. 17 Neloa Jones offered some of the same insights, critical observations, and comments that 18 have been made at the beginning of this process. She said that she has been disturbed about 19 the subjective nature of the weighting factors. She was disturbed about the flawed matter in 20 which the criteria have been applied. She said that, both the EPA and the National Justice 21 Advisory Council have indicated that, with the exception of the exclusionary criteria, all other 22 criteria should be applied to all remaining potential sites. In addition, it is recommended that no 23 site be revealed or eliminated before all criteria have been applied. She quoted, "Once 24 unsuitable areas are eliminated, the technical criteria and community-specific criteria are 25 applied to all remaining options." This was on page 18, EPA Waste Transfer Station Manual. 26 She said that this process has not occurred in Orange County. She pointed out North Carolina 27 Senate Bill 1492, which has now given the N. C. Department of Environment and Natural 28 Resources the authority to deny permits for transfer stations when, "the cumulative impact 29 would have a disproportionate adverse impact on a minority or low-income community." She 30 said that the cumulative impact of hosting landfills for 36 years is disproportionately adverse. 31 She is confident that, had the criteria been applied appropriately, the Eubanks Road site would 32 certainly not be on this list. She asked the Board to vote tonight to remove Eubanks Road from 33 this list of possible sites for a transfer station. 34 Rev. Robert Campbell said that he just turned in 240 community-specific criteria input 35 forms. He said that members of this community and other organizations have come together 36 tonight with one voice to say that 36 years of dumping Orange County garbage in their 37 community is enough. He said that it is time for historic change and it needs to begin here. He 38 said that they all make this urgent request to take the Eubanks Road site off the list. He said 39 that they have suffered 36 years of foul-smelling air, contaminated groundwater, aggressive 40 flocks of birds and buzzards, rats, and wild dogs. He said that to place the transfer station on 41 Eubanks Road means once again that there is no environmental justice for this community. 42 Hillsborough Town Commissioner Mike Gering said that the Town Board has not reviewed 43 this information but the two top candidate sites are in Hillsborough's Economic Development 44 District. He said that his board will be reviewing this information and he would like to have 45 access to information to determine how the technical criteria evaluation resulted in the scores 46 for these sites. 47 John Kizer said that his home is on site 696 and this site is #7. He is concerned that his 48 home is identified as a potential site. In light of the comments from the County Commissioners 49 at the beginning of the meeting, he will wait until the next meeting to make his comments to see 50 if his property remains on the list. 51 Ralph Warren deferred his comments until the next meeting also.