Snow Hill: Back to the drawing board
On March 4, 2002, the Board announced that it planned to re-start the landfill site selection in order to ensure a fair and open process. The company presented three possible sites to the county commissioners, including Bridger’s Tract (which RSNC still owned). The waste company hired a consultant to analyze the demographic characteristics of the three sites, and the resulting report concluded that only one of the proposed sites was near residents that had low incomes.
Soon afterwards, researchers at the University of North Carolina reviewed the report and found errors with the way that the analysis had been conducted. They provided a letter to attorneys for the citizen group that stated that the study was flawed.
The Greene County Board of Commissioners voted on the new landfill sites on February 3, 2003. The Board had the option of: 1) selecting one of the three sites for the landfill, or 2) not selecting any of the sites.
In a 3-1 vote, the Board opted not to select any of the proposed landfill sites.
“Don’t take no for an answer. There is always a way out of a problem, but be prepared for the amount of emotional, financial, and physical time you may have to put towards solving a problem. I don’t think any of us realized that we would be involved in this thing for so many years…”