Running apache as root is not a good idea, please don't consider it regardless of the security layers in place. (Plus, apache doesn't let you run it as root without recompiling with required modification -- I will not go into that, check apache docs.)
Option: Install SUDO. Add a user with privileges to execute required commands as root.
Run apache as that user and try running the command via sudo, it should work just fine.
Hope this helps.
-m.
