Years of pain

avid Caldwell, left, and other supporters with the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association protested Tuesday. DTH/Ariel Zirulnic

The Orange County Board of Commissioners convened Tuesday before a full meeting hall. Audience members, many of them residents of the historic Rogers Road community, raised signs into the air, sheets of paper bearing a simple message.

They read: “No waste transfer station on Millhouse Road, 37 years of Orange County’s trash is enough!”

At the meeting, commissioners approved a county health department survey of Rogers Road well and septic systems, in partnership with the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and Engineers Without Borders.

They also recommended county staff proceed with plans for a well repair program for residents living near the landfill.

Both measures seek to address complaints that a nearby landfill has contaminated groundwater in the area.

The Rogers Road community, a historically black and low-income neighborhood, has been the site of a county landfill since 1972.

A potential site for a new waste transfer station on the Orange County side of Millhouse Road lies close to the existing landfill.

Residents took the opportunity to voice bitter complaints about the county’s approach to waste management.

“This body has ignored its own site selection criteria, and has climbed merrily on board the bandwagon of an expedient solution,” said resident Kathleen Schenley. “You won’t have to live with your decision. We will.”

Commissioners have said that the Millhouse Road site is “regretfully” the most feasible place for the waste transfer site to be built.

Additional sites being considered include a location in Chapel Hill off N.C. 54 and a Durham site off of N.C. Highway 70, near the intersection with Interstate 85.

The Rogers Road neighborhood does not receive municipal water or sewage services because it lies outside the service boundaries of both Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The neighborhood’s struggle has recently come to the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency. Rev. Robert Campbell, a resident and community activist, will travel to the White House on Friday to meet with federal officials.

Campbell spoke before the commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting, saying that the community will continue to voice its displeasure with what he described as the county’s “ill-fated” waste management programs.

“When we speak about these things, there’s truly no action. There’s a lot of rhetoric. There’s a lot of conversation,” he said.

The commissioners plan to make a decision about the site of the transfer station Dec. 7.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.