An event is set for the Historic Rogers Road neighborhood Monday to celebrate the completion of 3.5 miles of sewer lines.

Chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners Penny Rich says that while the neighborhood has received water service for several years, access to sewer pipes has been long overdue.

“There was water on Rogers Road for years now, but they didn’t have sewer,” says Rich. “That was one of those agreements that we all got together – all meaning Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County, along with the community center – to make sure that we put sewer pipes in the ground.”

Rogers Road, which straddles the border of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, housed the Orange County landfill for over 40 years until it was closed in 2013 in response to environmental concerns.

Residents relied on well water before gaining access to water service in recent years.

Rich credits the hard work and activism of the residents of the neighborhood for getting the sewer project finally completed.

“It’s good for the Rogers Road neighborhood,” says Rich. “It’s a good thing. They stuck with it, and the folks out there deserve all the credit; the elected officials do not.”

Much of the blame for the neighborhood not having sewer access until now falls on the split down the middle of the neighborhood.

“The way that you diminish a neighborhood is you break it down, and you cut it in half like that, and that’s exactly what happened here,” says Rich.

The celebration will take place at the RENA Community Center on Monday at 6 p.m.

Photo from groundbreaking starting construction of sewer extension

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