Among other things on the County Commissioners agenda tonight the siting of the proposed waste transfer station. John Rees, an avid cyclist who lives in Dogwood Acres, is there and posting updates via Twitter. Here are his updated posts in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest):
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The games have just begun
The BoCC decided to go ahead with the transfer station tonight at the Howell property (and to also pursue the OWASA site in parallel). They think that the going after the OWASA site too will give them more leverage with the Howell trust :)
Disappointing
I don't understand what purpose it serves to set out design requirements, such as environmental impact on a single community and access to utilities, and then totally ignore them. The Howell property, as I understand it, is outside of the urban services boundary so it won't have water or sewer service from OWASA. According to the fire inspector I spoke with earlier this week, that means they will have to build an elevated water storage tank with a capacity of 1-2 million gallons along with all the back up generation needed to ensure pumping availability under any weather conditions. That's in addition to the cistern they will need for storing non-potable water and the well for potable water and the waste disposal for all that water (filtration ponds I assume). We should expect to see the total cost in dollars of this facility significantly exceeding current estimates.
No Kidding
From what I understand the owner wants 22K per acre, for 140 acres of land that will not perk and likely has polluted wells. As well, the owner wants another piece of their adjoining land (8 acres) rezoned to commercial/industrial. Originally they wanted only to give access from Teer road, but my understanding is that they have backed off from that requirement. In classic, do what I say, not what I do mode, the rezoning would break the current zoning model and flies in the face of everything the county has said out of the other side of their mouths for years.In other stupendous demonstrations of "I don't get it". The county commissioners want to build a *%$%* park on the property! I got Pepsi up my nose when I heard that. Another one was to have the folks out here join SWAB, obsessively to affect the trash truck traffic flow. They seem to conveniently forget (or cynically remember) there are only two ways in and out from that site.What amaized me was Bernadette's assertion (and the others agreement) that the process had been followed and that they had not *already* changed the criteria mid stream. Her assertion that considering other sites somehow "lacked transparency" Her assertion rang patently false to me and showed either a lack of factual knowledge or a deliberate obfuscation of the BoCC failure.I am almost thinking we should join SWAB and insist Hillsboro pay to send their trash from Hillsboro out I-85 to highway 54e than come in from the west, probably 40+ miles out of their way and Chapel Hill Carrboro trash down Martin Luther King (historic Airport) drive and then down Main street in Carrboro.