Rogers-Eubanks Coalition

The Historic Rogers Road/Eubanks Community
Invites you to meet the folks
behind the headlines

If you’ve been following the news stories about the Orange County Landfill and the siting of the new Waste Transfer Station for the past year, you’ve heard a lot about the folks that live in the historic Rogers Road/Eubanks Community.

Now, come and meet the folks behind the headlines in this historic and vibrant community. Come spend a Saturday afternoon and hear their stories, meet their kids and absorb first-hand, the 150 years of history in this community. Come share home-cooked food, listen to live gospel and steel-drum reggae music and join hands with others to end environmental racism. Click here for the event flier.

Some say transfer site proposal unjust

By: Sarah Frier, Assistant City Editor
The Daily Tar Heel 

Gertrude Nunn is tired of fighting with her next-door neighbor.

When the county landfill moved into her Rogers-Eubanks Road neighborhood in 1972, a dead odor started to soak up the peace of nighttime walks. Buzzards began to feast on the trash and then crowd the tops of houses and power lines. 

Nunn and other residents in the historically black, low-income neighborhood feel their quality of life has been so altered by the landfill’s presence that it constitutes environmental racism.

“We had meetings here. We had everything, but nobody listened,” Nunn said.

As the landfill reaches capacity, county officials are deciding on criteria for siting a waste-transfer station to replace it. Residents are attending the meetings, pushing for their neighborhood to be left off the list of possible sites.

Read the entire story here

By: Evan Rose, Staff Writer
Daily Tar Heel 

Carl Purefoy, a resident of the Rogers-Eubanks community, uncovers the well in his front yard. He does not drink the well water because it is a rusty color. Many residents said they do not feel safe drinking their well water, even when contaminant tests turn out negative.

Rogers Road - A community in question

Residents of the Rogers-Eubanks community, who have lived next to the Orange County Landfill for 35 years, are concerned about their health.

And as the search for a waste-transfer station site continues, many
are trying to clarify the impact the county’s trash has had on the
quality of their air and water.

Residents say they suffer from an array of health complications, from
common colds to renal failure.

Now they’re asking if fault lies with contaminants from the landfill
that could be seeping into the groundwater and drifting into the air.

Read the entire store here

By Taylor Sisk - Staff Writer

The Carrboro Citizen - February 21, 2008

The Board of County Commissioners reviewed site selection criteria for a solid-waste transfer station this week, settling on a process that starts by eliminating environmentally sensitive areas and that looks for sites close to major roads and heavy trash generation.

At a Tuesday night work session, the commissioners heard from Ed Shuffler of Olver Inc. regarding progress made in establishing a search process for the siting of the transfer site in Orange County. Olver is the consulting firm hired by the county to establish criteria, conduct the search and advise the commissioners on the selection of a site.

The majority of Tuesday night’s meeting – held prior to the commissioner’s regular session – was concerned with a discussion of preliminary exclusionary criteria, which is scheduled to be nailed down on March 18. The list of this criteria includes wetlands and floodplains; endangered and protected habitats; protected sites of historical, archeological or cultural significance; and park preserves. This proposed criteria further indicates that the site should be at least 25 acres, that it be located in Orange County and that it be within three miles of the county’s major arteries – though the commissioners and Shuffler discussed reducing this distance to one mile.

Read the complete story here. 

By: Catarina Saraiva, Assistant City Editor - Daily Tar Heel

Members of the Rogers and Eubanks Roads community came out in full force at Tuesday night’s county commissioners meeting to raise colorful posters and demand that the board remove the neighborhood from the list of possible new waste-transfer site locations.The board, which re-opened the search for a site in November after community allegations of environmental racism, heard comments from four members of the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism, which represents a predominantly low-income and black neighborhood bordering the Orange County Landfill. 

Resident Neloa Jones showed the board two maps drawn by UNC graduate student Chris Heaney, which show the concentration of Chapel Hill’s black population (see map here), the total parcel value of Chapel Hill land and the location of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority’s sewer and water mains (see map here). (read the entire article here)     

Petition by Orange County Residents to the Board of County Commissioners  to Eliminate Eubanks Road from Consideration for the Waste Transfer Station Site Search 

            For the past 35 years the presence of landfills has degraded the quality of life for the predominantly low income, African-American residents of the Rogers Road/Eubanks neighborhoods. These residents, whose neighborhoods have a rich heritage, have tolerated risks to their well water, odor and degraded air quality, noise, and pests brought by the landfills and other solid waste facilities. The detrimental effects of a nearby waste transfer station would continue this trend of having solid waste facilities in their neighborhoods—facilities which over the years have had a disproportionate and adverse impact. We the undersigned residents of Orange County respectfully request that the Board of County Commissioners eliminate Eubanks Road from consideration for the site of the waste transfer station and any other new solid waste facilities. 

Click on the link below to print the petition, gather signatures and then mail            

or fax the petition back to us for presentation to the Board of County Commissioners.

Download the petition here  

More than 450 signatures so far. Add your name today!

Dave Hart - Chapel Hill News 

Just as the Orange County commissioners prepared to open their new search for a site for a solid waste transfer station last week, they received word that a formal civil rights complaint concerning the transfer station had been filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.  

Due to the time lag since the complaint was initially filed, there was a bit of a disconnect to the announcement.  

Residents who live near the Orange County landfill filed the complaint last summer after the commissioners announced that they had decided to put the transfer station on Eubanks Road, where the landfill is.The commissioners, partly in response to heavy public opposition to the Eubanks Road site, subsequently backed off that decision and chose to re-open the search for another site.So in some ways the complaint was directed at a decision that has since been un-decided, although not definitively reversed.(read the full story here)

Jan 10, 2008 News Jump to Comments

Photo by Norman Barbee Sr.

By Taylor Sisk - Carrboro Citizen

Staff Writer

Did Mike Nelson feel rotten when he voted in favor of placing a solid-waste transfer station on Eubanks Road?

“Oh, god, yes,” says Nelson, a member of the Orange County Board of Commissioners.

“I think it was difficult for almost everyone involved,” he says of the unanimous decision made by the board last March, a decision that has since been overturned after the community, led by the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism, intensified its efforts at bringing attention to what they believe to be an environmental injustice. After 35 years of having lived with the Orange County Landfill and all its attendant consequences, the Rogers-Eubanks community was unwilling to quietly accept this additional burden.

“I think that just about any elected official will tell you there are times when they vote on something and they know that there are people who are going to leave the room hurt,” Nelson said in an interview with The Citizen shortly after the decision, reflecting on that vote. “And for me, that was one of those nights. I was really torn up about it.”

Nelson wasn’t alone in his discomfort: Others among his fellow commissioners felt likewise.

Read the rest of this entry »