2010030413

Wake Co. Residents Meet To Oppose Cary Sewage Facility

By Edward R. Brown, The Raleigh Telegram

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

WAKE COUNTY - On Saturday, March 20th, a group of residents in the New Hill community will host a meeting that will highlight the group’s opposition to a proposed waste water treatment plant in their community.

The event is being organized by the New Hill Community Association, in conjunction with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.

The event will be held at the First Baptist Church at 3016 New Hill Holleman Road in the Wake County community of New Hill from 9am to 12pm noon.

Media are invited to attend the summit and asked to be present for a 12:15 news briefing outside the church, which is adjacent to the site of the prospective sewage treatment plant.

The event will also be a “summit on environmental justice and environmental racism,” say organizers. The Environmental Justice Summit will focus on the history and legacy of environmental racism in North Carolina, and on environmental consequences that Site 14 will place on the New Hill community, say organizers.

Organizers say that “Site 14,” which is located in the New Hill historic district, is the preferred location for the Western Wake Regional Wastewater Management Facility.

The proposal to put the facility in the area is “causing great concern among New Hill residents and their supporters.”

New Hill is a rural community in Western Wake County, located near the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant.

According to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the residents around the New Hill site are being treated unfairly because of their socioenomic status.

“There are clear environmental injustices in this case,” says the group on their website. “The population surrounding the site is upwards of 75% ethnic/racial minorities.”

In addition, even though the plant would be next door, the local residents would not receive sewage services.

“Ironically, the community does not currently have access to sewer services, and only the property that is directly adjacent to the plant would be connected to it,” says the coalition.

Since 2005, residents have been opposing efforts by the Western Wake Partners, an organization comprised of the towns of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs and Morrisville, to place a wastewater treatment plant in middle of their community.

Those opposed to the plant say that those residents in those towns who will benefit from the plant are nowhere near it.

“Towns represented in Western Wake Partners are all far from the borders of New Hill,” says the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

Speakers at the summit will include Gary Grant, Director of the NC Environmental Justice Network and attorney Chris Brook of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

Also speaking will be Dr. Steve Wing, a UNC Chapel Hill researcher and epidemiologist, Reverend James Clanton of the First Baptist Church New Hill, and Paul Barth, President of the New Hill Community Association.

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