Larry Brown doesn’t want to smell garbage when he walks outside his home located off Slanting Bridge Road in Sherrills Ford. Catawba County is proposing to move solid waste collection services to a property near his home, and he’s upset about it.

Catawba County Director of Utilities and Engineering Barry Edwards said many citizens expressed concerns about the proposed site during a community meeting held at Sherrills Ford Elementary School on Monday.  Brown was one who asked the Board of Commissioners to look into other options.

Although the county already has an existing collection site on Sherrills Ford School Road near Slanting Bridge Road, the proposed location has more residential development around it.  Edwards said this is why the county has proposed landscape buffering to shield the site from the nearby homes.

Catawba County has five solid waste convenience centers throughout the county.  These sites are designed to give citizens a place to bring their trash if they choose not to use GDS to haul away their trash.

They county wants to expand its services at the Sherrills Ford Convenience Center, but there is not enough land, Edwards said.  The county is currently leasing the property from Crescent Resources and decided not to renew the lease with the intention of moving it to a larger site.  The county had looked into purchasing the current property in addition to an adjacent property, however they were unable to reach an acceptable price with Crescent Resources.

That left the county with the option of moving the Sherrills Ford Convenience Center to the 40.95 acres it owns on Slanting Bridge Road, Edwards said.  The property is located less than a mile from N.C. 150.  It’s two miles from the county’s existing site on Slanting Bridge Road. The problem is that several dozen citizens who live off the road are concerned about the smell and the traffic.  Edwards said it would cost $690,720 to relocate the site, using Solid Waste funds and not property taxes.

At Monday night’s meeting, several citizens said Slanting Bridge Road would not be a good site because it’s too difficult to turn onto Slanting Bridge Road from residential driveways.  They argued that not only would it not be safe to put the site there, but that the road can not handle the additional traffic.

The county’s lease on the Sherrills Ford Convenience Center site has expired and there are no plans to renew because the existing site is not sufficient to meet the county’s goals for expanded services.

When Edwards and his staff recommended moving the center to Slanting Bridge Road at the Catawba County Board of Commissioners fall retreat on Oct. 15, 2007, they asked him to look for other properties the county could purchase.

The county contacted six property owners along Steam Plant Road to find out if they had any available property for sale.  Brenda LLC was the only property owner willing to sell land to the county for a new Sherrills Ford Convenience Center.  The property is 1.6 miles north of the intersection with N.C. 150 and 1.4 miles from the current convenience center.  Edwards said it would cost $1.6 million to purchase the land and relocate the solid waste collection there, $924,258 more than it would cost to relocate services to Slanting Bridge Road.

One of the biggest concerns is that a train runs through the property preventing access during certain times of the day, Edwards said.  Duke Energy owns the property next to Brenda LLC’s land and said it would be willing to provide access to the center when the train is blocking access or during emergencies.

After numerous comments from the public, the Board of Commissioners asked the Utilities and Engineering Department to continue to look into other options.