HILLSBOROUGH - They're not making any promises, but local officials have been taking some action toward getting water and sewer along Rogers Road.

Last week, the Orange County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing on a $500,000 grant application to the N.C. Department of Commerce for a share of federal Community Development Block Grant funding.

Commissioners' chairwoman Valerie Foushee said that some of those funds could go toward infrastructure on Rogers Road.

"I would put a plug in for that money to be used in that way," said Foushee. "We're looking for any money we can find."

Foushee has also met with Congressman David Price, who agreed to help the county look for other sources of federal funding for Rogers Road.

"All we are asking is that we begin to do the right thing," said Rogers Road resident Robert Campbell, who has long advocated for new infrastructure as compensation for his neighbors' nearly 40 years of living with the county landfill. "We're not asking for anything more than any other resident of the community."

Rogers Road is outside the town limits of Chapel Hill, but inside the urban-services boundary, in an area intended to eventually become annexed into the town.

Providing water and sewer service to dozens of homes in the Rogers Road neighborhood would cost about $3 million, according to Ed Holland, spokesman for the Orange Water and Sewer Authority.