WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — As Wake County grows, its trash is piling up. As a result, the North Wake Landfill is running out of room and county leaders are trying to figure out what to do next.

Officials said the dump will be full in 2007, so managers from the 12 towns and cities in Wake County are meeting Wednesday to go over their options.

Walt Hudyma and a group of neighbors fought Wake County all the way to the state Supreme Court and lost. The court found that the county can dump 17 million tons of trash on the land if it decided to, but Hudyma said the sight and smell of such a neighbor is just the beginning.

"That's just an individual problem. The county has a bigger problem they need to address," he said.

Hudyma said the value of the land along the Highway 55 Bypass would go up if it were developed, not dumped. However, Jim Reynolds, the director of Wake County Solid Waste, said the only other option is to ship the garbage out of the county -- which costs more.

Reynolds said putting the landfill in Holly Springs would save the county $400 million over the life of the proposed landfill, which is 20 to 30 years.

Wake County town managers hope to make a decision in the next year.

In recent years, residents in three counties have won their battles to keep landfills out. Last summer,

Lee County

residents defeated a proposal. Three years ago, Waste Industries pulled its plan to build a regional dump near the Chatham County town of

Moncure

and a plan to turn a

Halifax County

landfill into a regional dump was trashed in December 2000.