White House officials have noticed Rogers Road.
The people of the historically black and low-income community just north of Chapel Hill have for years reached out to local leaders to tell of their struggle with air and water quality after a landfill was placed there in 1972.
On Friday, Rev. Robert Campbell will go to the White House to tell that story to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
EPA officials were interested after Rogers Road was discussed at the N.C. Environmental Justice summit in October, said David Caldwell, project manager for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.
“The neighborhood is buzzing. People around town are talking,” Caldwell said. “You’ve got an organization that has complained and brought concerns to so many people for so many years and you feel like it’s gone on deaf ears.
“But all of the sudden it’s gone to the highest level of authority.”
The invitation comes more than a year after the neighborhood filed an environmental justice complaint with the EPA. Campbell will use the meeting as an opportunity to follow up with the administrator, said Chris Heaney, an epidemiology doctoral candidate at UNC who has tested the area’s well water.
“He’s actually carrying with him some research that shows lack of compliance with clean water regulations,” Heaney said.
Campbell doesn’t know how much time he’ll have to talk. But he said his goal is to use the Rogers Road story to promote national conversations about environmental justice.
Other communities in the country have briefed him on their issues.
“Others might use our work as a pattern of doing their own,” he said.
The local conversation is ongoing. Issues like clean water and sewer access for the neighborhood will be discussed at two public hearings this week — one at the Chapel Hill Town Council meeting tonight and one at the Orange County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday.
The neighborhood is just past the urban services boundary for water and sewer access.
Commissioners still have not selected a spot for a waste transfer site to move trash outside the county once the current landfill reaches capacity in 2012.
Members of the Rogers Road community worked to ensure the site wasn’t placed near them.
Commissioner Barry Jacobs said despite disagreements on a solution for waste, Campbell’s visit could mean good things for both the county and the neighborhood.
“If Reverend Campbell can go to D.C. and help us get some money to bring water and sewer more thoroughly through that neighborhood, that’s fine with me.”
ATTEND PUBLIC HEARINGS ON ROGERS ROAD IMPROVEMENTS
Time: 7 p.m. today
Location: Chapel Hill Town Hall
Info: www.townofchapelhill.org
COUNTY PUBLIC HEARING
Time: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Location: Southern Human Services Center
Info: www.co.orange.nc.us
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
