Chapel Hill endorses Bingham site for landfill

"Whereas, the landfill site presently being used by the Town of Chapel Hill is no longer adequate, and . . . whereas Orange County presently has an option on a site in Bingham Township . . . now therefore be it resolved that the Chapel Hill board . . . strongly urges the Orange County Commissioners to execise their option on the Bingham Township site for a future sanitary landfill,

this the 5th day of June 1972."  Tell the truth: I had you going for a minute there, right?  Okay, sorry for the inflamatory headline and for this extremely long blog post.  But I wanted to bring some attention to the question of just how we ever came to have a landfill on Eubanks Road.  I thought this would be a good time to bring it up, as I understand that the Board of County Commissioners is supposed to decide the transfer station issue on December 7th.  So, as Dan Coleman once put it, I took a little stroll down landfill memory lane.  In other words, I went and read the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen (as it was then known) minutes for the summer of 1972.  Here is what I found . . .

No More Horace Williams Tract Landfill 

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Chapel Hill and much of southern Orange County used an area on the Horace Williams tract as a landfill.  Over the course of 1971 and perhaps before that [definitely newspapers show that this dated back to 1970 and perhaps before], the University of North Carolina let Chapel Hill know that the Town needed to establish a new landfill site that would not be on UNC property.  The Town came up with at least one alternative site, but could apparently only make it work if Orange County rezoned the site, which the Board of County Commissioners evidently declined to do.  Chapel Hill asked the University for extension after extension until June 1972 when UNC finally gave Chapel Hill an absolute deadline of September 1, 1972 for the Town to stop landfilling at Carolina North.

Chapel Hill endorses Bingham site for landfill 

Right away, on June 5, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen passed a resolution calling upon the Board of County Commissioners to exercise their purchase option on a potential landfill site on NC 54 in Bingham Township.  [What is it they say about learning from history?] At the meeting, Alderman Joe Nassif said that “if the County did not cooperate at this time Chapel Hill might well choose a site in the Planning District, rezone it, and limit it to the University and Chapel Hill.”  But apparently the BOCC declined to move forward with the site in Bingham Township.

Interestingly, the June 5th resolution also urged “the County Commissioners to designate areas now for future sanitary landfills so that their use can be incorporated into the plans for future industrial and residential growth and development of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the County.”  Plainly this never happened. 

Chapel Hill suspends trash pick up

Apparently in response to the County’s refusal to move forward with the Bingham site, Chapel Hill appointed a committee to search for a landfill site nearer to Chapel Hill.  The committee reported back on July 6 that they had found four possible sites and recommended Eubanks Road as the most appropriate site because it was accessible to Chapel Hill and because there was “very little development adjacent.”  [Shortly thereafter], Chapel Hill became so desperate that they suspended trash collection (althought they continued to pick up garbage - not clear what the distinction was but garbage was presumably more of a health hazard).

Later in July, the Town Manager reported that although he thought the Eubanks site would be best, County Commissioner Harvey Bennett had said that the County would not rezone the site for use as a landfill.  Apparently in response, Chapel Hill passed a resolution on July 10th stating that because “the Town of Chapel Hill has been diligently searching for appropriate regional landfill sites . . . and have thus far met with no success in . . . having said sites rezoned . . . the Town of Chapel Hill may be required to locate or acquire a site sufficient only for its needs, and in such event will no longer be able to permit the County of Orange and its citizens outside the corporate limits of the Town of Chapel Hill, or the Town of Carrboro or its citizens to make use of said landfill.”

[Chapel Hill went on to identify four possible sites in their planning jurisdiction and consider possible rezonings and condemnations, but did not complete that process.  They looked at building a 50 acre landfill to serve Chapel Hill and UNC only (not the rest of the county.)  They were poised to carry out that plan, but waited to see what the County would decide about rezoning the Eubanks property.] 

Eubanks is chosen 

Evidently the prospect of the County being forced to find its own landfill site was enough to change the Commissioners minds, as the Eubanks Road site was settled upon in August of 1972.  However, community activist B. B. Olive filed a complaint with the State Board of Health sparking an investigation that delayed the Eubanks Road Landfill for another couple of weeks.  On Septemeber 4th, Chapel Hill held a meeting at which Mr. Olive explained the basis for his appeal to the State Board of Health. Notably, the minutes for that meeting rather dryly report: “Mr. Olive read a list of the discrepancies.”  But no details of his issues were transcribed. Nothing more than perhaps a two-week delay appears to have come from Mr. Olive’s appeal to the State Board of Health.  Nonetheless, Alderman Scroggs complained that “Mr. Olive’s interference will make history because of the public health problem it created” by extending the time during which Chapel Hill had no trash service.

Recycling 

Interestingly, the September 4th meeting was the first one where recycling was mentioned as a part of the solution.  In a precocious appearance before the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen occasional OP contributor Peggy Misch “said that more information about recycling was needed . . . and that announcements on the radio and all the media should include suggestions for recycling.”  Alderman Alice Welsh latched on to the point and also noted the Ms. [Jane?] Sharpe had written a letter urging that the Board establish additional recycling centers.  Peggy also “asked the Board if they were planning to take action on banning non-returnable bottles.  Alderman Welsh said that a meeting would soon be held to discuss that.”  Also the Board directed the town staff to set up a temporary landfill at the site of the still-earlier Chapel Hill landfill on Plant Road near the current Chapel Hill Community Center.

Lawsuit 

On September 20th, Mayor Howard Lee reported that the New Hope Homeowners Association had filed a restraining order against the landfill site and that it would be heard in court on September 27th.  Nonetheless, the Board directed the Town Manager to move forward with purchasing the Eubanks Road site.  Just five days later the Town Manager said that he hoped that the new landfill would be opened within the week - landfill permitting being somewhat more lax at the time.  Shortly thereafter, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Orange County entered into an agreement creating a jointly owned regional landfill.

A promise of no more landfills?

The minutes definitely do not reflect any intention to have this landfill be the one and only solid waste disposal operation ever to be built in the area, though Rogers Road residents say such promises were made.  Lawyer’s say: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”  Along those lines, the absence of any promises in the minutes proves nothing.  We cannot be sure that the minutes are really complete.  For example, the minutes give very short shrift to the nature of B. B. Olive’s appeal to the State Board of Health even though it is clear that he went through them specifically. 

Also, the minutes barely mention any opposition to the landfill from the black community.  The landfill opposition discussed in the minutes appears to mainly have been from a white resident of the area, B. B. Olive, although the minutes do show that "Mr. Battle" spoke in opposition to the Eubanks Road landfill at one meeting.  [Correction: This was Gordon Battle who was a white attorney for a local land owner; also Mr. battle spoke against a different site that would have been near Piney Moutain Road, not Eubanks.]  To me, it seems unlikely that there was the no opposition registered from the Rogers Road neighborhood.  No one thought that it would be “no big deal” to have the landfill as a neighbor.  As we saw, the Board of County Commissioners was loath to site the landfill anywhere in their zoning jurisdiction in 1972.  Clearly this was because it was an undesirable land use; folks in Bingham Township (and near Eubanks Road) didn’t want the landfill then any more than they want the transfer station now.

[Nevertheless, neither the BOCC minutes nor the Chapel Hill Weekly articles show any opposition from the Rogers Road community, nor do they mention or quote any African-American person in opposition.  That could be an omission or it could be that the Rogers Road residents felt so disempowered that they did not show up.  Or it could be that they had already been somewhat placated by unwritten promises from Howard Lee.  Or maybe they felt far away from the issue.]

The landfill siting committee dispensed with the then-75+ year old Rogers Road community with the short phrase “very little development adjacent.” [This could be taken as literally true in that there was little development immediately adjacent, but I think] This is revealing about the underlying attitude of Chapel Hill government at the time.  Tough though it may be for some people to hear, I think this attitude can be fairly seen as racist. Not racist in the sense that it was done by white supremacists, but in the sense that the decision makers knew that a black community would muster a feeble opposition and they exploited that community’s lack of power.  That southern Orange County was in a crisis probably made it even easier to overlook Rogers Road.

A promise of a park?

Residents also say they were promised a park on the future site of the closed landfill.  Interestingly, the minutes do show some evidence that there were at least representations about creating a park, if not promises of one.  Notably, the idea first came up at the September 4th meeting when Mr. Olive counseled the Board of Aldermen that they should think of the landfill site in terms of its future potential as a park after the landfill operations were concluded.  And it appears that the local governments did appreciate this point of “interference” from Mr. Olive, as the eventual landfill operating agreement included this: “Consideration shall be given to possible future uses of this property as a park and recreational area, and preservation of trees which will enhance the possibility of this use . . . However, should conditions at that time be such as to make this [recreational] use undesirable, the land may by unanimous action of the parties hereto be disposed of in some other manner.”  It’s not a promise, but it is something. [The Chapel Hill Weekly articles definitely show that there were lots of other representations about the value of the site for future recreation.]

More to come? 

It would be interesting (sort of) to read the minutes of the Board of County Commissioners for the summer of 1972, as well as Carrboro’s minutes and local press accounts of that period.  Also I am curious about the disposition of the New Hope Neighborhood Association’s restraining order.  I’ll try to find time to read some of that in time to report back here before December 7th.  [I have now done a good bit of BOCC minute reading and Chapel Hill Weekly reading and my updates to this post are in square brackets.]