At last night’s business meeting, Mayor Kevin Foy urged council members to evaluate the four locations Orange County has proposed as possible sites for a waste transfer station.

The Board of County Commissioners is waiting to hear if the council will offer town land on Millhouse road. They are also considering a county-owned site on Millhouse Road, a parcel of land on Highway 54, and a deal with Durham to share waste transfer facilities.

The Board is ultimately responsible for deciding where the transfer station will go, but Chapel Hill Town Councilors made it clear they do not favor the Millhouse Road site. The location is less than a mile away from the current landfill, and both citizens and council members argued that building a waste transfer station there would add insult to injury for a community that has put up with the county’s waste for more than three decades.

Mayor Foy pushed for a fiscal impact study of all sites and a public hearing on the matter, but his proposal did not sit well with his colleagues. Mark Kleinschmidt said that while a fiscal impact analysis might be useful, any report must include the full social and environmental context of all the sites under consideration. Laurin Easthom went further, arguing that the town should not consider either of the Millhouse road properties.

With the Millhouse Road site off the table,  the council voted 5-2 to request a report detailing the fiscal impact of hauling garbage to either a waste transfer station on Highway 54 or a location in Durham. The Board of County Commissioners is scheduled to make a decision on the matter in early December.