Here's the Latest News! Digging deeper In Orange and Guilford counties, neighbors fight landfill expansions by Rebekah L. Cowell - Indyweek.com In 1972, David Caldwell was just a teenager, but he recalls every detail of that autumn day when Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee and other town officials stood in the Caldwell family's backyard and signed a contract that would mean little more than a blank piece of paper. "My father told me and my three brothers that this was going to be a really good thing for us, especially since the contract promised we would get a basketball court and ball field," says Caldwell, 56, a retired police officer. His father, David Caldwell Sr., was Chapel Hill's first African-American police officer. "We were walking eight miles uptown to play basketball at the Hargraves Center—the only African-American basketball court," says Caldwell. "We were excited."(read the whole story here) Study Finds Landfill Air Pollution Potentially Hazardous to Nearby Residents by Dr. Christopher Heaney Despite increased regulations on municipal solid waste since 1990, many landfill neighbors continue to report health problems associated with foul odors, pests, polluted water and traffic. A new study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, published online this month in Environmental Research, finds that potentially hazardous foul odors are commonly reported by neighbors of the Orange County, NC regional landfill. At times when landfill odor was present, residents reported more respiratory problems and irritation of the eyes, nose and throat. Researchers validated odor reports by measuring hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas that is produced by decomposition of landfill wastes. (read more here) Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt of Chapel Hill Recommends Emily Eidenier to White House Community Leaders Briefing White House Community Leaders Briefing Series Every Friday this summer, from June 24- August 26th, the White House will open its doors to community leaders from around the country to take part in our Community Leaders Briefing Series. The briefing series is a unique opportunity for grassroots leaders to come to Washington to hear directly from White House officials on the issues that are affecting communities across the country and learn more about the President’s priorities and initiatives from the people that work on them every day. In return, Administration staff will get to hear what’s going on in cities and towns across the country directly from the experts – the grassroots leaders. Participants are local leaders who are currently involved in their cities and towns at the grassroots level – in their neighborhoods, schools, churches, non-profit organizations, environmental groups, activist and advocacy groups, etc. and who are continuously invested in improving their own communities. We’re looking for those that can bring their successes, challenges, and ideas directly to the White House to help us improve the conversation between the grassroots and Washington. From: Helmrick-Blossom, Kellyn [Kellyn_Blossom@who.eop.gov] Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 11:07 AM To: eidenier@email.unc.edu Subject: White House Community Leaders Briefing Series Dear Emily, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt of Chapel Hill recommended your name to us as a exemplary local leader for your work with the Rogers Road community. We would like to invite you to participate in briefing series taking place at the White House this summer for community leaders. We hope that you can join us this summer. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best, Kellyn Congratulations Emily! Emily is the author of "Rogers Road" a Community History REACTNC awards $4800 to RENA for summer workshops Congratulations! On behalf of REACT NC (Realizing Empowerment Amongst out Communities Today), we are pleased to inform you that RENA has been selected for a grant in the amount of $4800 in support of "The Basics, Our Environment, and Ourselves Summer Enrichment Camp" series. The proposed project, "The Basics, Our Environment, and Ourselves Summer Enrichment Camp" series, seeks to extend RENA’s experience providing intergenerational environmental workshops, and their commitment to the environment, sustainability, gardening, and tutoring of low-income youth at the RENA community center into a 8-week, 7-hour day classroom/ outdoor summer camp series for children Grades 1-8 from the RENA and Abbey Court communities. (read more here) Talkin' Trash: A Clean Community Starts with Service -- Not Fees Orange County Voice and Justice United join with RENA "In the short term, we are also asking that convenience centers hours - especially Sundays -- be restored to improve service and discourage illegal dumping." read more here Living on the edge Residents endure legacy of old Chatham County landfill Ernest Alston grew up on East Alston Road, where as a boy he picked cotton and played among the brambles and the blackberries with his cousins, brothers and sisters. He is among four generations of Alstons to have inherited this land from Allen Alston, a freed slave who, after emancipation, bought the acreage from his owner, Gid Alston. More than 140 years later, this Alston Road community is home to 47 families—45 of them African-American—and many of them were here long before 1973, when Chatham County dug an 80-acre dump in the neighborhood. Read the whole Indy story here. Watch the documentary film: "The Fate of Waste: One community's quest for alternative solutions to trash." BOCC meeting video archive of April 5th meeting here. Scroll down to item 8a and turn up your volume. BOCC Regular Meeting - April 5, 2011 Ire flares over Orange landfill The News ansd Observer - April 6, 2011 Commissioners shouldn't pass on addressing the landfill The Daily Tar Heel - April 7, 2011 OrangePolitics.org - Extending the life of the landfill Follow the discussion here. Board of Commissioners delays decision on landfill extension. Carrboro Citizen - April 7, 2011 Rogers Road’s unreasonable speed limit a safety hazard Students walking along the road face dangerous traffic, as well as a lack of safety features. Chapel Hill sophomore Tima Karginov walks to school along Weaver Dairy Extension. The road he walks on is wider than most in Chapel Hill. There are sections where islands separate one lane from the other. There is a bike lane, as well as a significant shoulder alongside the road. Sidewalks lie parallel to the road, and, in several spots, there are pedestrian cross walks. There are no driveways or houses directly on this road, and, in fact, there are buffer zones of grass, trees and walls that stand between the road and the homes. “There is never a time that I feel at all unsafe walking along Weaver Dairy Extension,” Karginov said. “Even in the morning when there are many cars, they are a good distance from where I walk.” This neighborhood road, already family friendly, pedestrian-friendly and extremely safe, has a speed limit of 25 mph. Senior D.J. Rogers also walks to school. But the similarities stop there. Every day he endures the hazards of walking along a narrow road with no bike lanes, no cross-walks, no shoulder and only a sidewalk for one small stretch. “For most of it, you have to choose either to walk in the grass or on the very side of the road,” Rogers said. “In the grass, you have to deal with sticks and mud, not to mention you’re walking on a sloped surface. But, in the road, you’re in constant danger of being hit by a car because there’s no shoulder.” Lindsay Savelli, who graduated from Chapel Hill last year, recalls the one time she and her cross-country team jogged down Rogers Road during a practice. “[We] had to try to avoid cars the whole time,” she said, recalling that she and the team “almost saw a dog get hit by a car simply because it was sitting in the front yard right near the road.” Unlike Weaver Dairy Extension, Rogers Road is a relatively narrow road and lacks safeguards. In addition, families’ driveways are connected directly to the road, and their houses and front yards lie right next to the street. And yet this neighborhood road has a speed limit of 40 mph. There is no reasonable justification as to why Weaver Dairy Extension residents benefit from a turtle-paced speed limit on top of all the other safety precautions, whereas Rogers Road has a speed limit 15 mph higher, despite being a more hazardous road with fewer safety features. It’s a misconception that Rogers Road has its high speed limit only because it is a county road, whereas Weaver Dairy Extension gets its low speed limit from being in the town of Chapel Hill. In fact, it is fairly ambiguous as to whether Rogers Road is officially a county or a city road, as it has changed in recent years and is now technically dividing line between the towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill. In any case, technicalities over whether Rogers Road is a city or county road should never have played a role in deciding the speed limit for the road and should not today. What should decide the speed limit is concern for the safety of the residents and the many young children and Chapel Hill students who walk along the road each day. The issue is not just one for Chapel Hill students walking to school; it is also an issue for the community. Rogers Road is home to one of the oldest black communities in the area. Residents have been asking for a lower speed limit for years. In 1995, the county finally took action and reduced the speed limit from 45 mph to 40 mph. However, many residents saw this as merely a token change that had minimal beneficial effects on the safety of the neighborhood. Today, 15 years later, the speed limit on Rogers Road is still 40 mph. Rogers says the speed limit is still something he and his neighbors discuss. “There are people disregarding the speed limit going 60, 65, 70 [mph], totally disregarding the pedestrians along the road,” Rogers said. “If the speed limit were lower, we know people are still going to speed, but they speed to a certain extent. If it’s 40, they go 10-15 mph faster, so if it’s lower, they’ll still speed, but at least they’ll still be at a safer speed.” With regard to speeders, Savelli pointed out: “You constantly hear of people worrying about the cops patrolling the speed limits on Weaver Dairy Extension. The speed limit is only 25... If someone is speeding on that road, it’s not going to really cause a problem, but on Rogers Road the speed limit is high enough that if someone were to speed, it would greatly increase the threat posed to pedestrians and residents.” The inequality between Rogers Road and the nearby and parallel Weaver Dairy Extension, as well as any of the other Chapel Hill neighborhood roads is evident in the differing speed limits: While Rogers Road itself has a speed limit of 40 mph, all the extension roads off of Rogers Road, where slightly wealthier neighborhoods are located, have speed limits of 25 mph. Savelli says these are blatant signs of “favoritism.” Both Weaver Dairy Extension and Rogers Road are two-lane thoroughfares. Both serve as cut-throughs between two busier roads. There is no excuse as to why the speed limit of one can be so much lower than the other. It is understandable that, as a more modern road, Weaver Dairy Extension was built with the space for bike lanes, crosswalks and dividers, whereas the older Rogers Road was not. It would be a huge and probably unrealistic undertaking to try to widen Rogers Road or create the needed space to implement all the safety features that Weaver Dairy Extension residents enjoy. But the realistic and simple act of putting in two new speed limit signs would be easy, if only the right people were motivated, and it would do wonders for the safety of the residents, drivers and Chapel Hill students who walk to school along the road. Weaver Dairy Extension residents have been rewarded with a low speed limit, whereas Rogers Road residents have been demanding, rightfully so, a slower speed limit for years and still have nothing to show for it. It is long overdue but not too late to make a difference and lower the speed limit on Rogers Road to a safe speed. Aidan Kelley - Chapel Hill High School's "Proconian" - Dec. 2010
