Setting the Record Straight

Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) Review.

As the New Hill Community Association has continued to talk with many of the employees of the Partner Towns, we keep hearing over and over that the time for public comment is during the review by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

We have learned that only 3 sites will be submitted for review by DENR, even though there were 29 sites studied. The 3 sites are the targeted site, as well as two other sites that are heavily populated. In addition, one of the alternate sites was originally removed from consideration, and the other site is outside of Wake County, which would require additional intergovernmental agreements.

Since DENR will only be reviewing the three sites, of course the site in New Hill will look much more favorable than the other two. However, if all 29 sites were included, or if just the sites on Progress Energy property were included along with the site in New Hill, then we are confident the site in New Hill would not be chosen.

We refer to this as “stacking the deck against New Hill”. Think of it this way: you want to buy a luxury car. You take your spouse to ride in the luxury car, and two stripped down models. Which one do you think your spouse would choose? Of course the luxury car will be chosen because you have “stacked the deck” and not presented all the evidence. This is the same thing the Western Wake Partners are doing to New Hill.

As part of the study DENR will be doing, the Partners are claiming the residents of New Hill have not been impacted by large projects in the past. The Partners conveniently forget the residents of New Hill have been impacted by:

• the construction of US 1 from Apex to Sanford;
• the Dixie Pipeline that runs through many of our properties;
• the land that was taken for the nuclear plant;
• the construction of Jordan Lake;
• most recently Progress Energy condemned a lot of property in New Hill to run their transmission lines from the nuclear plant to Green Level and RTP.

It is amazing the Partners can say New Hill has not been impacted in the past.

The New Hill Community Association received a draft of the State and Federal Agency Comments regarding the selected site in New Hill. The document is dated December 13, 2005; is 50 pages in length, and contains over 200 comments, which are requests for clarification or errors found in the Draft EIS/PER submitted to DENR earlier this year. One of the more significant comments was made by Peter Sandbeck from the Department of Cultural Resources.

“We believe that the proposed facility may adversely affect the New Hill Historic District, a property listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Without additional information to the contrary, there appears to be potential for the introduction of atmospheric elements such as light and odor as well as noise from the increased traffic and operations. These all will adversely affect the rural character and setting of the historic district.”

Back