New Hill, N.C. – Elected officials, candidates for office, leaders of statewide organizations, as well as members of a community threatened with a negative environmental impact, will gather for an Environmental Justice Summit Saturday, March 20.
Currently Site 14, which is located in the New Hill historic district, is the preferred location for the Western Wake Regional Wastewater Management Facility, causing great concern among New Hill residents and their supporters.
The Summit is being put on by the New Hill Community Association in conjunction with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network to discuss the environmental impact of a planned sewage treatment plant. 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.
Media are invited to attend the summit and asked to be present for a 12:15 news briefing outside the church, in a location adjacent to the site of the prospective sewage treatment plant.
New Hill is a rural, majority community of color in Western Wake County, located near the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant. Since 2005 residents have been opposing efforts by the Western Wake Partners (an organization comprised of the towns of Apex, Cary, Holly Springs and Morrisville) to place a wastewater treatment plant in middle of their community.
Speakers at the summit will include Gary Grant, Director of the NC Environmental Justice Network, attorney Chris Brook of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Dr. Steve Wing, an adjunct professor at UNC Chapel Hill, Reverend Campbell of the Rogers-Eubanks Community Association, Reverend James Clanton of the First Baptist Church New Hill, and Paul Barth, President of the New Hill Community Association.
When: March 20, 2010
Time: 8:30 AM -12:30 PM
Where: First Baptist Church New Hill
3016 New Hill Holleman Road
New Hill, NC 27562
——————————————————————————–
Environmental injustice – when members of low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened with environmental hazards or risks for the benefit of affluent, predominately white communities and corporations.
www.southerncoalition.org
www.newhillca.org
Contact:
Elena Everett, Southern Coalition for Social Justice
(919) 323-3380×112; Elena@southerncoalition.org
Paul Barth, President, New Hill Community Association
(919) 362-7905; NCDeerHunter29@aol.com
Rev. James Clanton, New Hill First Baptist Church
(919) 218-4066; clantonjames@bellsouth.net
