Waste Dumping In The Historic Black North Carolina Community of New Hill in Wake County

Tonight we are joined by members of the New Hill Community, Rev. James Clanton and Mr. Louis Powell to discuss this issue.

Sommer Brokaw of The Triangle Tribune writes: A black community is in close proximity to a proposed sewage treatment plant designed mostly to benefit other areas surrounding them.

The site would impact 231 residents, over 75 percent African-Americans, according to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a Durham-based multidisciplinary group that promotes justice.

The proposed Western Wake County Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant would serve the growing needs of Apex, Cary, Morrisville and Holly Springs as well as the Wake County portion of Research Triangle Park south to the year 2030.

But black residents near the site say they are bearing the burden of the towns dumping their waste on them without getting the benefit of clean water/sewer lines. Site 14 is adjacent to a black community in New Hill, an unincorporated town near the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in western Wake County.

The New Hill Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places since 2001, includes two churches – New Hill Baptist Church, built in 1888, and New Hill First Baptist Church, built in 1910, and other buildings with Colonial Revival-style architecture.

"I think they need to select another site other than site 14 because that site adjoins our property. It's pretty much in our backyard. The only thing that separates our property from that site is a little creek," said Edna Horton, a resident who has lived in New Hill for over 30 years. Horton, who uses well water, said she is concerned about waste water contaminating the groundwater if there's a spill.