Lasting impact of contamination in Native American community of Upper Ringwood, NJ

*From 2004-2009, while working for The Record, I was part of a team of reporters who produced a massive five-part investigative series on the Ringwood Mines landfill site and found extensive contamination in the nearby residential Upper Ringwood community, a 500-acre former iron mining district. This essay focuses on the discovery of dangerous contamination, which originated from a nearby Ford auto plant in the 1970s, on the land of the Ramapough Mountain Indians. It also documents the harmful impact on the environment and to this often-misunderstood rural community, after a series of mishandled governmental agency clean-ups.

The Ramapoughs are a multiracial people who live in the Ramapo Mountains of Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey. They are part of the Lenape Nation, but also allegedly descended from peoples of varying degrees of Tuscarora, African, Dutch, and another European ancestry. They are recognized by NJ as the Ramapough Lenape Nation, but they are not federally recognized. The tribe remains the subject of mystery and mythology and has been the subject of negative stereotypes for generations. They are a close-knit, insular and distinct group, that likes to hunt, fish, and garden on the land that they say has been theirs dating back to Revolutionary times. The land is supremely important to them.

After the series was published in 2005, the EPA confirmed the area was contaminated with industrial and hazardous waste and placed the site back on the Superfund priority list in 2006, and began a massive cleanup. However, in the 1980s, the EPA designated the Ringwood Mines landfill site as a Superfund site for cleanup. 

Ford had operated an auto assembly plant in Mahwah before the plant closed in 1980. Once the largest in the world that produced six million cars in 25-years, and its contractors dumped industrial paints and other hazardous wastes in a landfill owned by the company in an area where many Ramapoughs live. The EPA did three more remediation as additional sludge sites were found. Following the series, the EPA returned the community to the Superfund list, the only site ever to be relisted. 

The industrial waste was dumped there and pushed into the old abandoned mine shafts, including excess paint known as “paint sludge,” which hardened into the earth. Before the clean-up, the hardened sludge appeared as colorful slabs found near streams and along hiking trails. The sludge contains high levels of lead, arsenic, and chromium among other contaminants. Sludge was also found on resident’s properties causing worry and safety concerns. It also threatened the region’s most important watershed. 

During the years of dumping, many of the Ramapoughs say they would scavenge the debris from the Ford plant, seeking copper and other valuable metals for sale. Children years ago used to play with the bright paints and debris. Since then several families in Upper Ringwood have been affected by high rates of cancer and adverse health effects from contamination near their residences and in the groundwater. They believe their illnesses are directly related to the presence of the sludge.

In 2006, the Ramapoughs filed a lawsuit, Mann v. Ford. Led by community leader Wayne Mann and represented by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., they sued “the Ford Motor Company and its contractors, as well as the borough of Ringwood, for the dumping of toxic waste." Later, they were represented by Vicki Gilliam of The Cochran Group in the 647-member plaintiff case. For five years the Ramapoughs pursued the case, as well as arguing before Congress for compensation, they settled with Ford for $11 million. Many families in the group received only about $8,000 each, to mitigate the costly results of exposure to the sludge and other toxic chemicals. At the time, Ford was facing bankruptcy and a protracted and complicated legal process set out by the judge made the case’s outcome uncertain. The Ramapoughs took the paltry settlement, disappointing many.

Since 2004, more than 53,000 tons of paint sludge and contaminated soil have been removed from the Ringwood Mines site and other nearby areas according to the EPA. But the Upper Ringwood site is still not completely remediated and much of the remaining contaminants are not going to be removed, and the area -much of which is a state park- is still closed to the public. 

In 2019, Ford agreed to spend another $21million to cap the sites. However, the groundwater at the Ringwood Mines, which feeds the Wanaque Reservoir and supplies North Jersey with drinking water, has been found to be polluted with cancer-linked chemicals, posing a greater risk. The EPA says it will announce a long-term plan for groundwater cleanup at a later time.