Then this may be an instance (a rare event) that we disagree.
I still feel it's a cop-out for Durham to ship waste somewhere else.
For me, I have to believe that there's got to be a better solution.
Educated minds, much more than mine, surely have answers.
I just keep seeing this getting more and more expensive for us with no end in sight.
Randy mentioned once that he'd done some research on this. I'm just advocating that we keep looking at it for a longer term solution and willing to listen to the new Director BEFORE taking these steps (new plan).
mike
----- Original Message -----
From: Anne Guyton
To: Mike - Hotmail ; RW Pickle
Cc: inc-list at durhaminc.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Is the new solid waste plan based on solid ground?
Mike,
I do agree that the best policy would be to keep our trash in Durham but every alternative you mentioned was studied in detail before the transfer station was built and they were all either too polluting or cost prohibitive or both. Have there been huge leaps in technology in the last 10 years that would justify the expense of revisiting these questions?
These alternatives all have major downsides: For example where would a steam/incinerator plant be built? Where would the emmissions go? Scrubbers to clean the emissions produce hazardous waste that has to be carefully handled and probably trucked to an appropriate landfill. If you site a new landfill within the county where will it be? In whose neighborhood? Last time this was done years were spent identifying sites without reaching an agreement on the location. We are now much, much more urban and less rural with much of the remaining rural land in the the watersheds for Falls and Jordan lakes. Those factors will make it extremely difficult to find a site.
I think that building materials and appliances are currently removed from the waste stream being sent to VA.
Part of the decision to go with the transfer station was that it was what other cities with similiar circumstances to Durham were doing. You have to remember that Durham is a very small county that straddles two watersheds. We are not like Wake County which is large enough to continue development at the present rate for decades without running out of land.
I also don't see that VA will be able to hold us hostage because there is competition among regional landfills. Pender County here in NC built one within the last few years.
I just don't think its justifed to spend more time and money on these questions without knowing that technology has changed significantly.
Anne Guyton
Mike - Hotmail <mwshiflett at hotmail.com> wrote:
All,
If my memory serves correctly, working out the contract to ship trash out of state was one of Lamont's first major decisions after becoming city manager.
At the time, the decision was held with very high accolades. But for many, it was a very short sighted answer to a much larger growing problem.
What are we going to do with our trash?
For me, it was and continues to remain patently dangerous and eventual financially ruinous for us, as a municipality, to haul our waste out of state.
It's both environmentally and morally wrong.
But before we start moving forward on any 'new' plan we need to answer the questions posed earlier and find alternatives for bulky items (they weight more) to be picked up and trucked out of town!
WE SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN TRASH!!!!!
As a community we must look at what options there are available first, before we continue to make it worse. The plan presented by Solid Waste at this point in time only adds more weight and money to its cost(s).
I'd suggest we look at what other cities have done. What the latest technology regarding steam generation/incineration plants, massive recycling of building materials, scrap metals and larger household items that could cut back (or hopefully eliminate) the need to sent it to Virginia.
Wouldn't it make sense to have a system in place that could reuse and/or co-generate something positive out of our waste stream rather than pay millions of dollars to haul it up I-85?
No where in the plan that's being currently passed around is a financially stable and physically viable long term solution.
Incorporating ideas other cities have been successful with and implementing ways to drastically reduce the truckload after truckload leaving Durham seems to me to be a better way to go about it.
If this new Director is even worth half the weight (no pun intended) of what we're going to pay him, he ought to at least have some of these solutions in his tool box.
Why not take advantage of what he can bring to the table.
Maybe we could make some changes that everyone could agree upon and make sense?
Now that would be a 'plan' a lot more people could get behind!
mike shiflett
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