March 8, 2010: Rural Wake Co. Community Invites Citizens and Elected Officials to a March 20 Environmental Justice Summit to Discuss the Impacts of a Prospective Sewage Treatment Plant & Incinerator

New Hill, N.C. – On Saturday, March 20, the New Hill Community Association, in conjunction with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, will host a summit on environmental justice and environmental racism at the First Baptist Church New Hill from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Media are invited to attend the summit and asked to be present for a 12:15 news briefing outside the church, which is adjacent to the site of the prospective sewage treatment plant.
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 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.
New Hill is a rural, majority-minority community 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, a UNC Chapel Hill researcher and epidemiologist, 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 -12:00 PM
Where: First Baptist Church New Hill 3016 New Hill Holleman Road
New Hill, NC 27562
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Environmental injustice – when members of disadvantaged, ethnic, minority, poor or other marginalized groups 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