CARY -- The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a petition Thursday that challenges the placement of a regional wastewater treatment plant in New Hill, an unincorporated community in western Wake County.
The petition, filed at the state Office of Administrative Hearings on behalf the New Hill Community Association, charges that the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued a water quality certificate to the Western Wake Partners that was based on insufficient information about potential environmental impacts.
The Western Wake Partners is a consortium of four western Wake towns: Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs. The consortium is planning the $327 million plant. It would meet a state mandate that requires three of the towns to return treated wastewater to the Cape Fear River Basin and would help all of them deal with growth for the next 20 years.
The Southern Coalition is asking for a hearing to contest state certification of the plant in an effort to block construction.
"We have been willing to host the Partners' sewage treatment plant so long as it was not in the middle of our community, but the Partners won't meet us halfway," the Rev. James E. Clanton, pastor of First Baptist Church in New Hill and a leader in the community association, said in a statement.
Mary Penny Thompson, general counsel for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The Office of Administrative Hearings is an independent state agency that conducts hearings for people affected by state agency actions. The hearings - legal proceedings that take place before a judge - are intended to affirm, modify or set aside an agency's original decision.
The New Hill site received final environmental approval from the Army Corps of Engineers last month.
In its petition, the coalition and community association contend that building the regional plant in New Hill would have significant consequences for low-income and black residents. The petition contends that the treatment facility would expose residents to sewage sludge, noxious odors and increased noise and light pollution.
"The Corps had a three-year exhaustive study on all the issues that were relevant," Mayor Keith Weatherly of Apex, chairman of the Western Wake Partners Policy Advisory Committee, said Thursday. "The concerns of the good people of New Hill were taken into account during the public comment sessions, and I think the Corps made the right decision."
The Southern Coalition and the state now await word on which judge will be assigned to the case. Once that happens, both sides will have to file statements outlining their arguments in advance of a hearing.
