HILLSBOROUGH - A group of Orange County residents may sue the Board of Commissioners over a plan to site a trash depot off N.C. 54 west of Carrboro.

Last Thursday, before the commissioners voted to negotiate the purchase of 143 acres for the trash transfer station, Durham attorney Jim Conner wrote them a letter asking for more dialogue between them and his clients, who have proposed alternate locations.

"This is what we sincerely want," Conner wrote. "However ... if the county is unwilling to have a meaningful dialogue ... I have been authorized to file suit seeking, first, a Restraining Order and Injunction to keep this facility from going forward at the site and, second, an eventual judgment invalidating the selection of this site."

Over the objections of Conner and Bingham Township residents, the commissioners chose a primary site and a back-up site adjacent to each other off N.C. 54 west of Orange Grove Road.

The commissioners are trying to bring closure to a dilemma that has plagued them for more than a decade -- what to do when the current Eubanks Road landfill reaches capacity in 2011. The county scrapped its plans to site the transfer station on Eubanks Road last fall, under pressure from Rogers Road neighbors to relieve them of the burden of a trash facility in their neighborhood.

Consequently, the county had only the past year to solicit public input and carry out a new search process. Some commissioners have said they had no choice but to make a decision this fall.

Conner said he was meeting with his clients this week to discuss whether to file suit to try to stop the county from siting the garbage depot in Bingham Township.

Conner believes the commissioners may be willing to explore one of his clients' alternate sites on a parallel track so as not to slow the planning process for the N.C. 54 site.

Conner said the identity of his clients is confidential, but his letter references his clients' report submitted to the county by the groups Orange County Voice, Orange County Community Awareness and the Rogers Road-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.

OCV comprises residents of Bingham Township fighting the transfer station and a potential Orange County airport. OCCA represents Hillsborough residents, and RENA brings together Rogers Road neighbors, all trying to keep the transfer station out of their direct vicinities.

"My clients are from all over the county," Conner wrote. "They have come together because they are all concerned that this process has been faulty and has resulted in a faulty conclusion.

"This process ended up exactly where poorly conducted processes end up: with a waste site located far out in the country where fewer people are neighbors, so it is assumed fewer people will complain," he wrote. "There is precious little to recommend this site other than its remoteness from Chapel Hill. Out of sight, out of mind: exactly what good solid waste planners try to avoid."

The groups' preferred site is 163.6 acres on Mt. Herman Church Road, in a low-density industrial area off Highway 70 and Interstate 85 between Hillsborough and Durham. They also favor sites along I-40/85 west of Hillsborough or on the Carolina North property south of the current landfill in Chapel Hill.

"I am interested in those sites because I am interested in any sites that are along the I-40, I-85 corridor," said Commissioner Pam Hemminger, who cast the lone vote against the Bingham site.

Hemminger said the county wouldn't pursue the Carolina North site because UNC owns it.

jesse.deconto@nando.com or 932-8760