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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 19960418\ I APPROVED 1011/96 a v MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ASSEMBLY OF GOVERNMENTS MEETING APRIL 18, 1996 The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the governing boards of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough met for an Assembly of Governments meeting on April 18, 1996 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chapel Hill Town Chambers, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Moses Carey, Jr. and Commissioners Don Willhoit and William L. Crowther COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Commissioners Alice M. Gordon and Stephen Halkiotis COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager, John M. Link, Jr. , Assistant County Manager Rod Visser, Public Works Staff Mike Gamer. and County Attorney Geoffrey Gledhill CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Rosemary Waldorf and Council Members Julie Andresen, Joyce Brown, Joseph Capowski, Mark Chilton, Pat Evans, Richard Franck, and Lee Pavao CHAPEL HILL STAFF PRESENT: City Manager Cal Horton, .Assistant City Manager Sonna Loewenthal, Orange Regional Landfill staff Gayle Wilson and Blair Pollock and City Attorney Ralph Karpinos CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERMEN MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mike Nelson and Aldermen Jackie Gist, Diana McDuffee and Hillard Caldwell HILLSBOROUGH TOWN COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Mayor Horace Johnson and Commissioner Evelyn Lloyd HILLSBOROUGH STAFF PRESENT: City Manager Eric Swanson NOTE: These minutes were developed from the summary of this meeting done by the Orange Regional Landfill staff. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER Chair Carey stated that this public forum on Solid Waste Management Issues will be an opportunity for citizens and members of the governing boards to ask questions and discuss issues that may not have been discussed before. They will identify topics for discussion and each citizen who signed up will be given three minutes to ask questions. Twenty minutes will be allocated for each topic. Mr. B. B. Olive requested that Dr. Cumancho, an international expert on plasma technology be allowed to talk about plasma technology for 10 minutes and then receive questions. ATTORNEY'S OPINION ON THE REQUIREMENT FOR A PUBLIC HEARING Geof Gledhill explained that there is a requirement that before a landfill siting decision can be made that a public hearing must be held so that the governing boards can consider alternative sites and social, economic and demographic data. The North Carolina Administrative Code indicates that the site must be approved by the government that controls the planning where the landfill will be located. This also requires a 30-day notice. The information is received as part of the public hearing process which must be submitted with the application made by the local government to the state in the state approval process. Chair Carey clarified that a public hearing will be held separate from this forum. The governing boards will be asked to set a date for this public hearing. Geoffrey Gledhill clarified that the resolutions passed by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough are a tentative decision to select Orange County-Site 17. Two public hearings are required before a formal vote can be taken. One public hearing requirement arises because the site is near the existing landfill and the other is a requirement of the application process. SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT GOALS ADOPTED BY ORANGE COUNTY GOVERNMENTS 645 Alici Marshall stated that the result of the many years that the landfill search has taken is disharmony between elected officials and the residents of Orange County and between communities and neighbors. She submitted a petition with 550 signatures requesting that the governing boards look at alternatives beyond a landfill. Alderman Jackie Gist stated that they have worked toward harmony by reaching out to neighbors -' and listening to what they have to say. Commissioner Willhoit emphasized that landfilling is one component of the total solid waste management plan from which they will consider alternatives. K. Riley stated that his company last year processed 12 million pounds of plastic, 2-1/2 million pounds of that was PVC Vinyl siding. Not one pound of this came from Orange County. Gayle Wilson stated that a report will be presented on May 8 regarding construction and demolition materials and some options on how Orange County may proceed to reach a 50% reduction in that area. C. Griffin, representative of an organization called SEAL, said their goal was to educate the public on alternatives to landfilling solid waste. Their overall goal is to stop Eubanks Road area landfill. R. Ban- questioned why there was not a goal to be good stewards of the citizen's money and thus keep cost as low as possible for waste disposal. He asked if the LOG is willing to adopt a goal to keep the cost low within Orange County and not issue bonds without consent of the citizens. Councii Member Chilton said that they plan to look at drafting some language for that. Commissioner Willhoit clarified that the total cost for disposing of solid waste is $175 million over the 50-year life of the landfill. Mayor Johnson made reference to pages 32 and 33 of the Joyce Engineering preliminary report and noted that landfilling is the most cost effective method for disposal of solid waste. D. Whallen spoke about his disagreement with the process for siting the next landfill. He feels that the County should have had a comprehensive solid waste management plan in place before looking for a landfill site and that it is not too late to nail down a solid waste management plan and then determine how large a conventional landfill is needed. He favors shipping out trash to other communities like Fayetteville_ that are seeking additional business. Alderman Gist said that she is opposed to shipping out of county and will continue to oppose this: ",,,, ` She said that one of her problems with Site 17 is that it has an impact on people who are relatively powerless, politically. Council Member Franke feels that this forum and all the other steps required before a decision is made is a sign that the governing boards are committed to hearing all the possibilities before making the best decision they can. Alderman McDuffee feels that shipping the County's waste to Fayetteville has a lot of possibilities since they have a plant that needs a large waste stream to process and make it efficient. Commissioner Willhoit said that he feels they need to look at other altematves of disposal options. With reference to the size of the proposed landfill, he noted that the criterion given.the Landfill Search Committee was 300 acres. On the conceptual plans that the consultants came back with they had a garbage fill area that was about 100 acres and then there was the construction and demolition landfill, processing facility and all the other components. The modified plan recommended by the LOG would use one of the techniques like piggy backing, where the next landfill would be placed on the side slope of the existing one. Eve Olive stated that this proposed landfill will be located near a school which is against state regulations. Her fear is that the water in the wells at the Emerson Waldorf School will be contaminated in the next 30 years. She expressed her concerns about air and water pollution affecting the children and asked if a down wind health study will be done prior to placing another landfill at the present site. Gayle Wilson noted he knows of no studies which have been done on this issue. Commissioner Willhoit noted this will be an item that will be discussed as they move forward. Chair Carey suggested moving on to the second topic and that additional comments be sent to the LOG. 646 OUT-OF-COUNTY AND REGIONAL COOPERATION ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ISSUES K. Alanis, project coordinator for VEDCO Energy Corporation, owner of the BCH Energy Project in Fayetteville, spoke about this project. They are currently handling approximately 900 tons a day of municipal solid waste from five counties. They transport the waste to their facility. They remove recyclable items such as cardboard, aluminum, plastics, tin cans, glass and will be capturing newspaper from the waste stream. They process the rest of it into Refuse Derived Fuel and ship it to their energy generation facility. The fuel is processed into steam for DuPont and electricity for CP&L. They are actively looking for additional waste because they have additional capacity at the facility. They have a second project in North Carolina called Carolina Energy located in Wilson where they have five counties under contract for 20 to 25 years each. Because of these two projects seven landfills are closing in the area. B.B. Olive asked if the governing boards plan to initiate a fresh regional approach to solve the waste management problem. Commissioner Willhoit stated that he favors a regional approach to management of various aspects of the solid waste stream. However; he is not willing to open the search for a regional landfill. K. Riley asked if the governing boards were aware of VEDCO and if any of them have actually seen the operation. Commissioner Willhoit stated he was aware of it and has seen the video. RDF was one of the technologies considered, but on a split vote, the LOG deleted that from the systems they are doing detailed studies on. Council Member Chilton noted that based on the amount of money paid, there were a limited number of systems that could be studied. He does not feel that Orange County's waste stream is large enough to be compatible with that technology. A RDF facility in Orange County would be tremendously expensive. He is against shipping out of county because he is sure that those people living near VEDCO and the facility in Wilson don't like living near those plants no more than the people do that live near Site 17. He does not feel that this is an economical viable option for Orange County. Council Member Capowski noted that VEDCO is charging $37/ton to collect the Brunswick County trash before recycling it which is on the order of what Orange County is paying and he feels it at least bears investigation. . Gayle Wilson noted that they did evaluate both out-of-county waste options and the VEDCO project. This document is a public document if anyone wants a copy. Council Member Joyce Brown asked that reports be done on the health effects for all the technologies that will be considered with proof that these technologies are safe. Gayne Wilson noted that one of the criteria used in conducting these studies was protection of the environment and public health. C. Griffin noted that page ES-4 of the handout entitled "Evaluation of Disposal Options" concludes that the cheapest operation of disposal of municipal solid waste is an in-county landfill. However, if the County achieves a 40% waste reduction, four of the six out-of-county options are cheaper. LANDFILL SITE SEARCH PROCESS CRITERIA AND RELATED ISSUES R. Persley noted that several studies have been done which indicated many health risks are associated with living in close proximity to a landfill and asked how the governing boards could justify siting the new Orange County landfill on Site 17, a site which is in a densely populated area. Gayle Wilson said that at least 6 or 7 wells have been tested near the present landfill by the Health. Department. Two of the wells have shown traces of constituents not in levels above the drinking water standards. None of the wells at the facility show those constituents in the perimeter wells that would indicate that it has moved off site. They are required to test methane at several dozen wells around the perimeter of their facility on a quarterly basis. They are also required to test for methane on all closed structures on the facility. Orange County's landfill was the first landfill in the state, non hazardous landfill, to install ground water monitoring wells in the 1970s before it was required. 647 T. Sorrow agrees with shipping waste out of Orange County. He feels that safeguards should be in place so that the fee will not drastically raise once a contract is signed. He feels that long term, the County should prepare for the next century by building a county or regional facility perhaps in cooperation with Durham or neighboring counties to incinerate waste. D. Caldwell said that residents of Orange County have waited a long time for a decision on the ^'a location of the next landfill. Although, reports indicate the water is okay, many of the residents buy their drinking water because the water has a bad smell especially after a hard rain. He noted that the garbage trucks start early in the morning and continue on to late in the evening dropping most of their loads on the side of the road. He recommended that water and sewer be provided for those that need it and that the speed limit be dropped to 35mph due to heavy traffic. Linda Carver noted she has not seen integrity or a sense of honor or fairness in the landfill site search procedures. She asked that the government find a better way to dispose of solid waste than landfilling. Gayle Wilson summarized the process that was followed in selecting citizens to serve on the search committee. No sites had been in existence then. K. Riley asked what was planned after the 50 year life span of the proposed landfill. Commissioner Willhoit said that the LOG has looked at and discussed the terms of waste reduction and looked at other technologies that would extend the life of the landfill and hopefully they will have a sustainable community when it comes to solid waste. Through waste reduction and recycling and processing, they should be able to reduce the amount they have to bury so that the 50 year horizon is well beyond that. C. Griffin,noted he lives on property next to Julia Blackwood. He asked if members of the governing board can honestly say that they are convinced that what they are advocating is right. He stated that the citizens surrounding the present landfill will not willingly stop their opposition to the County's efforts of imposing a landfill on them. Mayor Horace Johnson noted that being an elected official is not an easy task. His position is to not favor anyone nor to fear anyone but to simply do what is right for all the people in Orange County. There was a process of weighing out the evidence as it was presented. The decision must be based on honesty and what a person believes to be true before moving forward. Commissioner Willhoit said that decisions must be made on the information and what is right for the majority of the citizens. The one promise that is written into the agreement is about parks and recreation space and they have every intention of following through with that promise. Alderman Gist said that she has opposed Site 17 from the beginning and will continue to oppose it and that many people on the Carrboro board feels the same way. She does believe that a promise was made to not locate the next landfill near the present landfill. She does not feel there is a need for something that big. C. Griffin said that no one has an interest in buying the land they put up for sale because of Site 17. He asked if alternatives have been investigated. The only, compensation he desires is the honoring of the commitment made by more than one public official nearly 25 years ago of no new landfill in their neighborhood. B. Ray said he has been involved with the landfill search from the beginning. He wonders when it will all end. He feels the citizens of Orange County should let the elected officials make a decision. B. Andrews said that there are a lot of alternatives that have not been explored. COMPENSATION RELATED TO LANDFILL SITING AND DEVELOPMENT Linda Carver said that the only compensation she wants is no landfill. No amount of compensation would help get rid of the smell, dust, rats and roaches. Alderman Gist said that if Site 17 happens, the only idea she can come up with is to have land bought at prelandfill value. S. Mason said she lives around Site 17. The SEAL members feel that compensation should be considered as restitution for past damages. The only compensation they want is that promised by the officials serving government at the time the current landfill was constructed. f,. 648 Alderman Gist said that compensation means several things. One is to ask the residents what will it take if the worst happens to make your life a little better and to try to come up with a way to minimize the impact on your lives. Commissioner Willhoit said that there are two categories of compensation. One to the individual and one to the community. Compensation to the individual is for those property owners that are directly impacted where property must be acquired. This would include fair market value and just compensation but also provide relocation assistance. One of the ways to minimize the impact on the neighborhood is by placing limits on access, on operation and the type of activities on site. This is what we need to address. P. St. John asked why the worst has to happen and said that the best isn't taking the landfill from Orange County-17 and dumping it somewhere else. The best is to get rid of the landfill. He feels that there is the technology to do just that. He supports plasma technology. They have a petition to stop the landfill search and to look at alternatives. He feels that landfills are outdated and damaging. Everything that goes in the plasma technology comes out as safe reusable energy. 1. Gutzwiler said that the issue of compensation is a non issue. The issues should be how to solve the problem of municipal waste in Orange County. He asked to stop the compensation issue and start with good science, good technology and better ways to solve the landfill problem. 1. Nunn said that this is the same stuff heard for years and feels that the landfill is going to go on Eubanks Road whether the citizens like it or not. He does not feel that anyone is interested in the other technologies. ; ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES B. B. Olive read a letter from the law firm of Robinson, Bradshaw and Hinson and specifically from Frank Emery who represents Duke University. The letter stated that "under no circumstance will Duke allow a landfill or any other waste facility on Duke Forest". Dr. Cumancho explained that the plasma technology involves the use of electricity to generate heat which converts the waste into two by-products. One of the products is a fuel gas which can be converted ...into electricity. The cost of this process is very reasonable and has been proven and demonstrated to not emit any semi-volatile compounds. In answer to a question from Council Member Capowski about the location of any place in North American where this technology is working in a production mode in the quantities that Orange County needs, Dr. Cumancho said that there will be a process in Korea at the end of this year. He explained that the equipment proposed for Orange County would involve a furnace heated by a plasma torch, an electrical control and supply system, a gas entry system and some type of water supply system. The system would be comparable to a home because there is no place to stack. The Cost for a 480 ton per-day module would be $48 to $50 million dollars which could be recovered in five to six years. _ Commissioner Willhoit noted that he is intrigued by the process. The biggest issue is having to come up with $50 million to build the plant without the guarantee it will take care of the needs of the county. It seems like a perfect opportunity for a venture capitalist but Orange County should not be the venture capitalist. Dr. Cumancho said that they would need to do a feasibility study to determine what the waste is and fuel value of the waste per ton. They would need to know the moisture content of the waste and the local cost of power. With that information, he could get the County a good contract and a decision on whether or not they could guarantee the process. J. Barr expressed a concern with spending too much money on a landfill and not having the money to finish Chapel Hill High or to build a middle school in Carrboro. He feels that Orange County-17 should have had a representative on the landfill search committee and that they have not been listened to in many of the proceedings. 1. Gutzwiler asked that other alternatives be explored, especially landfill mining. Commissioner Willhoit said that they will explore other alternatives in the development of. the solid waste management plan. Alderman Gist said that in looking at other technologies, they need to determine if they are really safe and also look at the social issues. If they are going to consider out-of-county, she wants to meet with representatives of local activist groups and see what their take is on facilities on out-of-county. 649 . Mayor Johnson noted that the budget puts constraints on some of the new technologies. He is willing to look at something new but it has to be cost effective, safe and there has to be a market. OTHERITEMS Commissioner Willhoit, in answer to a question about testing wells within 1/2 mile of the present landfill, said that he would be willing to have the Orange County Health Department do the testing with the fee paid from the landfill fund. K. Alanis said that they have not had any opposition to the BCH Energy project in Fayetteville. They have been good neighbors at the material recovery facility which is located at the existing Cumberland County landfill. D. Whalen supports the Carrboro Board in their demand that a solid waste management plan be in effect before proceeding with a final selection of a landfill site. ADJOURNMENT With no further comments, Chair Carey adjourned the meeting. He indicated that there will be two more opportunities for citizens to make comments on the siting of a landfill on Site 17. The next regular meeting of the Orange County Board of Commissioners will'take place on May 1, 1996 at the Old County Courthouse in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Beverly A. Blythe, Clerk Moses Carey, Jr., Chair