Rogers Road

Have y'all seen the web site that the County's consultant set up about the new site search process? At the Orange County Transfer Station Siting Website, visitors can find background, details on the siting criteria, and upcoming meetings.. This is a good start and represents an improvement on the amount of information previously available.

My wishes are that:

1. They would provide a syndicated feed so that we can follow updates to the site without having to visit each page every day to see whether there's something new.
2. The COUNTY ought to provide this kind of information on it's own website, since this is the people's information, and should do this for more projects. Of course, the Towns should do this as well.

The County Commissioners are starting the new search process to site a proposed waste transfer station, just as they received official notice of an environmental justice complaint filed with the EPA in 2007 by the landfill neighbors.

Before getting to the search the board met in closed session to discuss a newly received notification from the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Civil Rights that a formal complaint had been filed.

The complaint alleges racial discrimination on the part of the county, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

County Attorney Geoff Gledhill said officials will not publicly discuss Eubanks Road until they decide on the board's response.

To avoid similar protests this time, the board will serve as the search committee but will work with Olver Inc., a Charlotte-based consulting firm that specializes in environmental issues and waste facilities.

For those of you interested in following the development of the Rogers Road landfill and waste transfer station story, we have established a blog at http://rogersroad.wordpress.com.

We welcome your comments on the blog and encourage you to share this resource with your friends. We also welcome your support and attendance at the many public meetings held to discuss the search for a new location for the Waste Transfer Station. Send us your contact information and we'll keep you advised.

From all of us at the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism (CEER), our best wishes for a warm and wonderful holiday and a New Year free from environmental racism!

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Stan Cheren
Rogers-Eubanks Coalition
Communications Committee
http://rogersroad.wordpress.com/
(919) 942-9493 voice · (919) 942-9396 fax
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