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Ms. Neloa Jones read a prepared statement, entitled "The Rogers-Eubanks `Coalition to <br />End Environmental Racism' (CEER)". <br />Background <br />For nearly one hundred and fifty years, African-American families have lived in what is <br />now known as the Rogers-Eubanks Community. In the late 1800'x, Rogers Road was awagon- <br />track through black-owned family farmland and sawmills that stretched from Homestead to <br />Eubanks and Millhouse Roads. There was once a school on Eubanks Road, founded by a <br />farmer slave, for black children not allowed to attend school elsewhere. As decades passed, <br />black-owned family farmland was passed down to children and grandchildren. Other land was <br />lost to debt or simply sold. However, African-Americans continued migrating to this community; <br />they continued to purchase land and establish homes. Today, a predominantly low-income <br />neighborhood, the Rogers and Eubanks Community nevertheless remains socially cohesive and <br />culturally rich. <br />In 1972, when the Town of Chapel Hill decided to use 120 acres of land on Eubanks <br />Road as a landfill -this was a thriving community; it was a community strongly apposed to <br />having a landfill near them. However, Howard Lee, Mayor of Chapel Hill, convinced the <br />community to accept the landfill for ten years, promising that afterwards no other landfills would <br />be opened near them and a park and other basic amenities would be provided when the landfill <br />closed. That was 35 years ago. <br />Promises Broken <br />And in spite of the fact that Orange County prides itself on being aggressively opposed <br />to social and environmental injustice, it has refused to honor decades of broken promises made <br />to the Rogers-Eubanks Community. This community still awaits the park and basic amenities it <br />was promised. Local governments continue to expand solid waste facilities on Eubanks Road: <br />since 1972, two municipal solid waste landfills have been opened; two industrial waste landfills <br />have been opened. There are yard and hazardous waste collection sites, recycling and <br />garbage drop-off centers, a Materials Recovery landfill {MRF), and let's not forget about that <br />huge, toxic, smelly leachate pond right next to Mrs. Gertrude Nunn's property. The newest <br />proposed addition to these ever-expanding waste facilities is a solid waste transfer station. <br />Law-income communities always the mast vulnerable <br />In its March 2000 report, the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council concluded <br />that "WTS are sited disproportionately in areas adjacent to poor communities and communities <br />of color." On September 2, 2007, The lVew York Trmes reported that "low-income <br />communities...shelter most of America's polluting facilities" and that African-Americans are "79 <br />percent more likely than whites to live in areas where air pollution levels pose health risks." <br />Professor Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University, a pioneer and expert in environmental <br />justice issues since 1978, says that "the people who live closest" to "a lot of different waste <br />facilities" are the people "who have the fewest resources," those who are "most vulnerable." <br />This "doesn't mean that [they] should be dumped on." <br />On March 3, 2006, the Solid Waste Advisory Board {SWAB} passed a resolution <br />recommending that the solid waste transfer station be located an Eubanks Raad. Why? <br />Because Eubanks Road was convenient, because the County could put the transfer station here <br />cheaply and would be saved the hassle of having to search for another site. And there was a <br />good chance the community would not object too loudly. On March 27, 2007, the Orange <br />County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to accept this recommendation from SWAB <br />to locate the transfer station an Eubanks Raad. <br />What we are asking for tonight <br />