Lincoln Apartments
SCSJ is currently representing the residents of Lincoln Apartments. More information is coming soon.
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Es su Esquina
From Reportaje sobre la ordenanza en Carrboro que les prohíbe quedarse en la esquina de jornaleros después de las 11:00 de la mañana. Chris Brook,…
Something Stinks in New Hill
SCSJ has submitted an official response on behalf of the New Hill Community Association to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding the Corps’ Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).
The attempt to locate a wastewater treatment plant in the center of New Hill is not the first incident of environmental racism the community has experienced. New Hill is a rural, majority-minority community in Western Wake County where the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant was located. Residents have been fighting the placement of the sewage plant in their community (which will not serve local residents) since 2005, and have received the support of the NC Environmental Justice Network and the NAACP in addition to SCSJ.
SCSJ has found that:
- The selection of New HIll ("Site 14") was reverse-engineered to avoid adequate public input and without sufficient consideration to the environmental and human impacts associated with this site.
- The selection of Site 14 will have a direct and major impact on the New Hill Historic District and minority community.
- Locating the plant in New Hill has much larger human and environmental justice impacts than other suitable alternatives.
- The FEIS does not make clear how the disposal sewage sludge, which contains “a wide range of toxic substances and chemical compounds,” will occur. The options under consideration may contaminate groundwater in New Hill or result in nearby residents unwittingly inhaling sewage sludge residue.
Public weighs in on congressional redistricting process
Follow the link above for video coverage.
By Heather Moore
RALEIGH – North Carolina lawmakers are working to redraw legislative and congressional district lines, which historically has been a very political process. It happens every 10 years after census numbers are released.
Wednesday, the public got their first chance to tell lawmakers what they expect of the redistricting process and the new lines. Redrawing district lines impacts how many lawmakers represent an area and exactly which area they're representing.
In the past, it could even play a role in who would win the election by creating districts of like-minded voters, a political tactic called gerrymandering.
“My concerns are that minorities will be packed into certain districts under several gerrymandering techniques that have been used in the past,” said Jessica Holmes with the Alliance for Fair Redistricting and Minority Voting Rights.
But state lawmakers say they're taking extra steps this year to make the redistricting process as fair and open as possible.
“The gerrymandering as it's been in the past has pretty much been eliminated by the fact the courts have responded, especially the North Carolina Supreme Court,” explained Senator Bob Rucho, a Republican representing Mecklenburg County and Chairman of the Redistricting Committee. “There are certain times we're going to have districts that may be spread out but there's a reason for it legally, whether they follow the Voting Rights Act or whether they follow whole county or whatever it may be, but legally there's a reason for that occurring.”
Lawmakers are holding at least twelve public hearings all across the state to get input about the redistricting process.
Concerned citizens say they appreciate the opportunity to participate.
“I'm very excited they have spread these public hearings across the state,” Holmes said. “I'm happy about this process. I'm happy about this opportunity to come here and give my public input.”
Bye-bye OLF
Published by the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald on November 21, 2013
It’s over.
After several years with a cloud of uncertainty in regard to a potential Navy…
It’s over.
After several years with a cloud of uncertainty in regard to a potential Navy…
Census Mini-Grants
SCSJ has closed our second round of small grants for organizations to support outreach efforts for the 2010 Census.
The final deadline for these grant applications was Tuesday, February 16, 2010, by 5pm.
Check out our blog for bi-weekly profiles on mini-grantees.
Recession Adds To Hurdles Facing U.S. Census
A year from now, the U.S. will conduct its decennial population count. The findings are used to re-apportion congressional districts, disburse federal funding — even decide where new traffic lights go. But the economic crisis threatens to make this daunting task even harder. There is special concern about minority groups, which are traditionally hard to count.
Listen to story by clicking link above.
Carrboro rethinks loitering ordinance
From Durham Herald-Sun covers the debate over the anti-loitering ordinance in Carrboro, NC. SCSJ is working with community members to urge the town to reconsider…
#CounselorsNotCops Infographics Reveal Policing Disparities in Wake County Public Schools
Black and Latinx students should have a safe learning environment. But for many students of color, school police do not equal safety. In Wake County…
Human Trafficking: Combating modern-day slavery on North Carolina farms
Agricultural production in North Carolina is 46 billion dollar industry which involves the fifth most farmworkers of any state (Legal Aid of NC). For tens of thousands of farmworkers, it’s an industry which remains seeped in extreme exploitation and, for some workers, modern-day slavery. The issue of human trafficking has become a point of action for the governments across the world, while here in North Carolina,(the Southern Coalition for Social Justice) is teaming up Student Action with Farmworkers Student Action with Farmworkers to build awareness about and to combat human trafficking on NC’s farms.
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking, defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) is any recruiting, harboring, moving, obtaining, or maintaining of a person by fraud, force, or coercion, for a commercial sex act, involuntary servitude, debt bondage, peonage, or slavery.
In 2007, at a time when the US Senate was fiercely debating immigration reform, the New York Times published a story about a guest worker from Thailand, Worawut Khansamrit, which described the horrors of fraudulent recruiting and labor trafficking in North Carolina.
The story is simple, proving that human trafficking could happen to anyone. Mr. Khansamrit, a former farmer in Thailand, mortgaged his family farm in Thailand for the opportunity to work in North Carolina. Mr. Khansamrit was promised to make more than thirty times what he made in Thailand, which would have allowed him the ability to afford his daughter a quality education. When Mr. Khansamrit arrived in North Carolina, the job he was promised no longer existed, which led him to working in New Orleans cleaning up debris from Hurricane Katrina, a job for which he was never paid.
This story is repeated by many of the 120,000 guest workers per year allowed to get work visas. Guest workers fill a historical role in the work force in the US, a role based on paltry wages, no rights, and horrid working conditions. Faced with systematic exploitation, similar to the former plantations of yesteryear, the workers are faced with an assault on their basic human rights and little way out.
What are signs of Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking can be broken into two basic different forms; commercial sex trafficking, labor and service trafficking. Traffickers, including recruiters, pimps, small business owners, and criminal networks, are driven by enormous profits and huge demand for trafficked people to be exploited in labor and in sex work.
Victims of human trafficking are controlled by constant threats of violence, confiscation of identification documents, threats towards the victim’s family, threats of deportation, debt bondage, isolation from one’s community and the public, and language barriers.
Signs of human trafficking include involvement in commercial sex work, underpayment for work, confiscation of documents, lack of physical mobility, denial of communication, threats if a worker wants to leave, and a different work situation than promised. Trafficking does not require smuggling or forced movement, movement across borders or physical abuse.
What is being done?
Mr. Khansamrit and 21 other Thail workers, with the help of Legal Aid of North Carolina, filed a class action lawsuit against several labor contractors and farm owners in North Carolina for fraud, breach of contract, minimum wage violations and illegal human trafficking. Yet this is not the usual case for most people who are victims of human trafficking.
The US State Department, as well as governments across the world, are working hard to combat human trafficking.
This summer, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice has had the great opportunity to have an intern with Student Action with Farmworkers Into the Fields program who has been researching, compiling information, and designing popular education workshops about the trafficking of farmworkers in North Carolina. Also, we have been reaching out to farmworker camps, low-cost clinics that serve farmworkers, and partnering with Legal Aid of North Carolina's Farmworker Unit to combat human trafficking.
Through these efforts, we have been building community awareness about the illegality of human trafficking and the legal remedies for trafficked farmworkers. “This means that the fear workers once had of being deported can be exchanged with the hope people now have of obtaining a Visa and social services if they have been a victim of trafficking,” said Cris Kontopidis, “Into the Fields” intern with SCSJ.
“Our goal is to eventually reach all the locations where trafficking takes place in North Carolina, from the most urban to the most remote, and raise the awareness that people can have a way out, and reduce the potential for trafficking to continue happening,” said Kontopidis.
For more information check out
Legal Aid of NC Farmworker Unit Legal Aid of NC Farmworker Unit
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice
Permit Issued for controversial Western Wake sewage plant
Permit Issued for controversial Western Wake sewage plant
Posted by Rebekah L. Cowell on Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:32 PM
After five years of fighting the placement and construction of a wastewater treatment plant within their town's historic district, the New Hill Community has received a setback.
Yesterday the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' district commander Col. Jefferson M. Ryscavage issued the Corp's Record of Decision (ROD). The ROD gives the Western Wake Partners the necessary permit to begin building their $327 million wastewater plant at Site 14. That site is located on a 237-acre parcel of farmland taken by eminent domain by the Partners for the purpose of building the 62-acre wastewater treatment plant. The location lies adjacent to churches, playgrounds, and homes.
New Hill is a small town on the fringes of western Wake County. Because it is unincorporated, New Hill’s total size is hard to quantify in acres or miles, and there are no defined boundaries. On a map it sits between Moncure (Chatham County) and Apex.
More than five years ago, New Hill residents were upset by an alliance of Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs, later known as Western Wake Partners. Soon the partners decided New Hill was an ideal location for them to build a wastewater treatment plant to meet the needs of their towns’ fast-growing populations.
The project is more than three years behind schedule. It could be completed by 2013, with construction beginning as early as this year.
While the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers felt their were no practicable alternatives to Site 14, there are significant social justice impacts that defy the Corp's statement that the project "is not contrary to the public interest."
Site 14 sits directly across the street from the New Hill Baptist Church and playground, and a half-mile away from the First Baptist Church of New Hill; the plant will be built within 1,000 feet of 23 homes.
More important, 83 percent of the 230-plus residents immediately affected by the sewage treatment plant are African-American; rural neighbors on fixed incomes or retired and elderly.
Chris Brook, attorney with the Southern Coalition of Social Justice representing the New Hill Community Association expresses disappointment after an initial review of the ROD with the NHCA.
"The ROD suffers from the same problems that have plagued this entire process: it does not adequately consider environmental justice or water quality concerns and also gives short shrift to alternative sites with fewer human impacts," he said.
Objections continue to proposed sewage plant in New Hill
Half of Apex Town Hall was a sea of red shirts April 14 at the public hearing on Western Wake Regional Wastewater Management Facilities, a proposed sewage plant slated for New Hill.
The people in red, representing a New Hill residential association, had a common message: Build it somewhere else.
“Who wants to live near a stinking sewage plant?” asked resident Vickie Gardner.
“I’m embarrassed that our sewage is going to be piped through beautiful countryside to the New Hill community,” said Carl Thor, a Cary resident, one of the 46 speakers who weighed in that night.
As proposed, the $329 million plant will sit between Shearon Harris Road and New Hill Holleman Road. Called “site 14,” it will service the surging sewage needs in Cary, Apex, Holly Springs and Morrisville, towns who have partnered on the project, with Cary funding over half of the cost.
The meeting stretched to three hours, with detailed presentations on the plan’s engineering report, environmental impact statement and certification requirements.
Mayors Keith Weatherly (Apex), Dick Sears (Holly Springs), Harold Weinbrecht (Cary) and a representative for Jan Faulkner (Morrisville) spoke in favor of using New Hill.
“As a mayor personally committed to environmental protection, I am proud to be speaking in favor of this facility,” Weinbrecht said. He left the hearing immediately after his comments, something that didn’t go unnoticed.
“The people who have been very hard to work with has been Apex and Cary. And who’s missing in this room?” asked New Hill resident Bob Kelly.
Weinbrecht responded in an e-mail that he had to meet guests from France and left Cary Town Manager Ben Shivar, Public Information Officer Susan Moran and several utility staff members to brief him on what he’d missed.
The Cary Mayor’s statement at the hearing left no doubt that he supports New Hill as the preferred site for the plant.
“Exhaustive analysis of draft EIS proves without a doubt that [the] project should move forward,” he said. “Move forward without delay and move forward on Partners’ proposed site.”
Residents’ objections included lowered property values, stench, noise and light pollution. They fear leaks in the pipeline, possibly contaminating their well water. They questioned accountability to New Hill, whose people aren’t represented by the towns spearheading the project.
Resident Anne King said that there are 231 people, two churches and historical cemeteries within a half mile of site 14.
“Put the site where there are fewer people,” said John Moore.
Nobody disputed the need for a new facility, which will accommodate ballooning populations and fulfill previous interbasin transfer requirements issued by the state to return water to the Cape Fear River by 2011. The plans also address Holly Springs’ commitment to relocate its waste discharge from Utley Creek.
Chris Brook, an attorney representing New Hill, questioned how the towns intend to make that deadline with a project slated for completion in 2013.
Residents said there are other sites near U.S. 1 that will accomplish these goals without impacting their community. Many urged “site 21/23,” located west of New Hill Holleman Road — land owned by Progress Energy. But town documents favor the New Hill site based on discharge lake logistics, environmental protection and water quality.
New Hill residents countered that they think the decision had more to do with politics. Some cited racism.
“There is an 83 percent minority population within a half mile radius of site 14,” said Edna Horton.
Other comments were more pointed.
“When I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I know why they chose it,” said Louis Powell, a black resident. “We don’t have the political clout to fight you. We don’t have the money.”
Documents predict a 15 to 35 percent utility bill increase for the towns serviced by the new plant.
See more on the project at westernwakepartners.com. Another public hearing is scheduled for this summer.
vdehamer@nando.com. or 460-2608.