The Toxic Legacy

Toxiclegacy

The tons of toxic waste that the Ford Motor Co. buried in the mountainsides of Ringwood and elsewhere more than three decades ago are an environmental time bomb lodged in the heart of our watershed.

As the five-part series that begins today in The Record explains, huge amounts of this toxic paint sludge - laced with lead, volatile organic compounds and other dangerous chemicals - still lie buried. And the federal government, which declared Ringwood a Superfund site, has allowed Ford to get away with shoddy cleanups time and time again.

This sludge continues to pose a major health threat to the enclave of Ringwood residents who live on the mountain. And it is leaching into the groundwater, posing a long-term threat to the Wanaque Reservoir and the hundreds of thousands of North Jersey residents supplies. This is outrageous.

How could Ford get away with this for so long when the foul-smelling sludge was literally under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's nose? Both Ford and the feds must be held accountable. It is long past time for a federal criminal investigation into the sludge dumping and puny cleanup efforts.

More Information

www.northjersey.com/specialreports/toxiclegacy.html

RINGWOOD — Ford's backhoes are done digging up its toxic dump, but other contamination remains in a state park and in the Upper Ringwood neighborhood.

When or if it will ever be removed is up to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which signed off on the contractors' withdrawal from the area last week.

"For now, everything that can be removed has been removed," said Elizabeth Totman, an EPA spokeswoman.

EPA says it is waiting for a plan from Ford on what to do with the remaining waste. But Ford says it's not responsible for some of it.

Contractors for the auto giant have excavated and trucked away more than 35,000 tons of lead-based-paint sludge and tainted soil since 2004. Left behind, however, is toxic waste in two former iron ore mines and Ford's landfill. Arsenic-laced dirt lies near a back entrance to Ringwood State Park and across the road from five houses.

The EPA has said the contamination hasn't made its way to the nearby Wanaque Reservoir. But residents living near the site blame high incidences of illness on the contamination left from Ford Motor Co.'s dumping four decades ago, and say once again their government is not protecting them. The residents, who have sued Ford, want workers to remove all of the waste.

"I know they're far from done, but EPA is lagging in approving other areas to be cleaned," said Vivian Milligan, a neighborhood leader. "The process has been way too slow and a lot more needs to be done."

Federal legislators and state and town officials have urged the EPA to make sure the mess is fully cleaned up. The federal agency, meanwhile, has allowed Ford to work on its own terms and timetable. This is the fifth cleanup of the area.

"EPA walked away from Ringwood while it was still contaminated and still hasn't finished the job," Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg said Tuesday. "EPA needs to get to the bottom of this failure and get this site cleaned up once and for all."

Ford once owned 900 acres in the mining area, but said it doesn't know how much waste was dumped.

The latest plan is for Ford's contractor, Arcadis, to continue testing water and soil and put together a plan for the remaining contamination. The EPA must approve that remediation plan.

"We expect to have the Record of Decision — the plan that outlines how to remediate the site — done by the end of 2009," said Joe Gowers, EPA project manager.

But until a plan is implemented, unknown amounts of contamination remain:

Arsenic: Three excavated areas at the end of Peters Mine Road, near a stream that flows to the Wanaque Reservoir, still contain dirt fouled by arsenic. A known carcinogen, arsenic is linked to an increased risk of cancers including lung and liver.

Ford claims the arsenic is from iron mine tailings and says it is not responsible for removing the tainted soil. It is conducting tests to try to prove it. Arsenic occurs naturally in some rock formations and also is found in automotive paint. Test results are expected at the end of May.

Kevin Madonna, a lawyer representing residents suing Ford for medical monitoring and personal damages they claim resulted from the contamination, said leaving the toxic soil "defies common sense."

"Whether it's Ford's or not, once they dug it up and took it from underground, it's their responsibility to remove it," Madonna said. "If the tarps blow off and it flies into the community, they are responsible."

But Gowers said the soil poses no threat.

"You have to come in contact with it, put it in your mouth, touch it," Gowers said. "The area is still closed to the public, and the tarps are keeping it from seeping into a stream."

Residential properties: Residents are still waiting for the state Department of Environmental Protection to inspect their properties for contamination. Paint sludge was removed from two lawns and a driveway in November 2005 and each property was to be inspected for more.

But the investigation, separate from Ford's work, was suspended after sinkholes appeared near several homes; the heavy equipment needed for excavation and test drilling could have triggered further collapses.

Mayor Walter Davison said the borough wants a complete cleanup as soon as possible.

"Our position is that they have to clean that property up once and for all," he said. "These residents shouldn't have to live with this so long. I'm wondering if there's still paint sludge under yards and driveways."

Mines: Ford has acknowledged its contractors dumped tons of its waste into two mines. At this point, neither Ford nor the EPA have presented a plan of any kind on how that waste is to be addressed. Former Mayor Wenke Taule, an advocate for residents, said the waste in the mines should be removed now, rather than further studied.

"I find it shocking and disturbing that the sites, which are possibly the most contaminated, will not be remediated for years. This means that the residents of Upper Ringwood will continue to be exposed to toxic sludge, and that is outrageous," she said

And to think Misterpat and i hiked thru the whole area yesterday

Yes, and in my search on this I ran across a pdf that marks all the mines.

Peter's Mine looks like the biggest.

We should check this out sometime.

looks interesting i saved it to look at later

Dont take Peters mine road it is all fenced in from Ford. I went there to check things out today.

almostgone wrote: Dont take Peters mine road it is all fenced in from Ford. I went there to check things out today.

Really? Did you get any pics? Whats fenced in, the whole area, or just the mine?

I did not get pics went to see were i could get in. If you follow peters mine road to the end on the map you posted, there is a orange area with black lines in it. That is were the fences are and they are high. There is a garbage company on the left and people everywere watching anyway. It can be accessed by the skylands park entrance off sloatsburg road but there is a lot of trails. And i need a map that has trails on it the map you have is the mine map. go to this website and mabey you could find the trail on a map it is the trail in the red highlighted area.

www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/ringwood.html

How about this map?

I think they changed all the names on your new map from the ones i found from 2005.

almostgone wrote: I think they changed all the names on your new map from the ones i found from 2005.

Maybe just head up there one day and scope it out.

Toxic Waste Taints a Jewel of New Jersey's Parks System
By TINA KELLEY

RINGWOOD, N.J., Dec. 30 - Ringwood State Park attracted more than half a million visitors in 2003, making it one of New Jersey's most popular state parks. Located in the Highlands region near the New York border, the park has rugged trails for mountain biking and hiking, two sprawling historic manor houses, and the 96-acre New Jersey Botanical Garden.

It also has a toxic waste dump that seems to defy cleanup.

Three-quarters of a mile of the park's newest hiking trail was closed to the public on Dec. 18, after a state-certified lab found that lead levels in paint sludge dumped there decades ago were 70 times the level considered acceptable. Dangerous levels of arsenic and other toxic chemicals were also found in the sludge, which was discovered by local residents and collected for testing by a nonprofit environmental group. Groundwater and soil in the area were also contaminated.

The closed section of the 4,044-acre park is part of a 500-acre federal Superfund site in Passaic County that was supposedly cleaned up a decade ago, after Ford Motor Company removed about 7,000 cubic yards of paint sludge it had dumped there from its Mahwah production plant.

Ford owned the property at the time, and later donated some of it to the state, which made it part of the park in the 1970's. The area was included on the federal Superfund list of contaminated waste sites in the 1980's, then removed in 1994 after Ford's cleanup. Since then, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has called the company back three times to remove more of the paint sludge, now hardened, which continues to be found on the mountainous site.

Now the company is cleaning the site again.

"I think it's stunning that so much contamination could have been overlooked or ignored in a cleanup subject to federal oversight," said Bradley M. Campbell, the commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Protection. "Obviously, it's problematic when these are areas we're promoting for public use."

E.P.A. officials have trouble explaining why the waste keeps surfacing in an area they determined was clean.

"We believe we removed most of it in the first removal, but I think there's erosion, and it's difficult to see," said Kim O'Connell, an E.P.A. supervisor assigned to Ringwood. Vegetation and the rugged terrain hid some of the rocklike sludge and old 55-gallon barrels, she said.

The 500 acres will be re-examined in 20-square-foot increments, and test borings will be drilled a foot deep to sample the soil. Aerial photography may help find disturbed areas with more waste, she said.

"We're going to try to be as thorough as we can to find it and remove it," she said.

Park officials said the contamination appeared to be limited to an area around the closed section of the Hasenclever Iron Trail.

E.P.A. officials said Ford had estimated that 300 to 400 cubic yards of paint sludge would have to be carted away. Barring the discovery of more waste, the area should be cleaned up in the next four weeks, Ms. O'Connell said. Further testing will be done elsewhere on the 500 acres where dumping was known to have occurred, including land that is now residential property.

Vivian Milligan, who lives on Peters Mine Road near the closed trail, finds the closing troubling. "One of the most important things to me is the hunting," she said. "That's how we've survived all our lives, with venison and rabbits and squirrels. I went rabbit hunting with my husband, not thinking about it, and now they don't want us to be in there."

On a recent visit to the park, Bob Spiegel, the executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, walked past signs announcing that the entrance off Peters Mine Road was "closed to all public use," and he pointed to an old, rusting, sludge-filled 55-gallon drum a few yards from the trail.

"They obviously didn't look too hard," he said of Ford and the government agencies responsible for the original cleanup. "It raises not only red flags about this site, but also about the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sites that have been delisted."

"If they can walk away from a site like this," he said, "what other sites have they been able to walk away from?"

He pointed out an old concrete foundation, part of the old Peter's Mine, left over from the region's iron mining days. It was filled with dirty ice. The water in the nearest stream was a butterscotch color, which Ford officials say is due to a bacteria common in iron-rich waters, a claim Mr. Spiegel does not accept.

Even after trucks dumped loads of sludge here, the water inside the foundation was the local swimming hole, and residents remember catching and eating crayfish and drinking water from the springs, just as they had for generations.

Dressed in protective yellow rubber boots and blue gloves, Mr. Spiegel, whose group commissioned the study that found the high lead levels, picked up a slab of battleship gray sludge wrinkled like melted tar, and said that in warmer weather the area smells like turpentine. The brook, gurgling nearby, flows to the Wanaque Reservoir, which provides drinking water to Newark and Jersey City and is the largest surface water reservoir in the state.

"I've never seen a site where this much waste has been dumped where it's opened to the public, where the public's invited to actually come out and walk in these areas where the E.P.A. and the state apparently know about it," said Mr. Spiegel, who has visited 50 toxic waste site cleanups.

When he walked through the park in November, he said, he saw a group of 15 to 20 people, including children, touring around the dump site near Peter's Mine.

"That kind of group should not come into contact with these areas," Mr. Spiegel said.

Cheryl Eberwein, a spokeswoman for Ford, said no substantive contamination had been found at 20 of its groundwater monitoring wells.

"As we remove that paint sludge, we will be doing additional sampling and monitoring in the area to make sure no residue from that material is left in the environment," Ms. Eberwein said. "We're taking a fresh approach to it. We're concerned about this, that obviously there's sludge we missed."

RINGWOOD - Watchdogs say Ford's not up to job at hand

(by Teresa Edmond - Staff Writer - January 23, 2008)
RINGWOOD - While the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is waiting for results of finished investigations on some of the Upper Ringwood contamination site, environmental advocacy groups maintain that Ford Motor Co. isn't cleaning up the site fast or thoroughly enough.

The EPA is anticipating results of the "essentially" completed investigation done at the Peters Mine Pit and O'Connor Disposal areas, according to Mary Mears, the chief of EPA's Public Outreach Branch. The Cannon Mine Pit area is still under investigation.

Based on these investigations, cleanup plans would be developed for the Superfund site. Sometimes it's difficult to determine a site's exact length of cleanup time for any Superfund site, especially when the EPA hasn't finished all of the site's investigations, Mears said.

"The whole point of investigation is to get a better sense of how much contamination is there and to determine a plan to clean that up," she said.

The Peters Mine Pit, Cannon Mine Pit and O'Connor Disposal areas are the primary grounds Ford Motor Co. used to dump its paint sludge in the 1960s and 1970s. Other suspect areas in Upper Ringwood, like Van Dunk Lane and Hope Mountain Road, are under investigation.

Environmental justice organizations, like the New Brunswick-based Environmental Research Foundation, are still not convinced that Ford is doing enough to expedite the Superfund cleanup.

"The contamination will present a threat until it's cleaned up," the foundation's executive director, Peter Montague, said. "Complete cleanup should proceed as quickly as possible."

Robert Spiegel, the executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association Inc. (EWA), said that the test pits are a "step in the right direction" because it's the only way to identify the paint sludge. However, to dig and investigate paint sludge in a few areas on the site doesn't indicate that the Superfund site is fully clean.

"It's a 500-plus acre site," he said. "For them to say that (the area is fully clean) is misleading because I don't think anyone knows where (all) the paint sludge is. Anywhere a truck has pulled up, that's where they dumped the waste. They'll have to look long and hard at the area before they say they did good job with that area."

Once the EPA gets the investigation results, it would compile a cleanup plan that the agency would post for public comment by spring 2009. From there, the EPA will take public input and decide on a final cleanup plan by summer 2009, Mears said.

Six test trenches and four new monitoring wells were installed in the Cannon Mine Pit area at the end of last year. Although no paint sludge was identified in any of the Cannon Mine Pit area's six trenches, crushed pieces of large cylindrical containers called drums - some with contents that were unknown upon discovery, according to Gowers - were discovered in one of those trenches. The EPA was waiting for test results of the unidentifiable contents as of press time.

In addition to the Cannon Mine Pit, O'Connor and Peters Mine Pit areas, Ford's cleanup contractor Arcadis US Inc. excavated test pits and trenches in suspect areas located outside these areas, including along Hope Mountain Road and Van Dunk Lane. From these test pits, paint sludge was discovered along Hope Mountain Road but not identified along the trail north of Van Dunk Lane.

The EPA is trying to schedule a community advisory group meeting for late this month or early next month. However, the EPA is waiting to hear if Upper Ringwood residents are available to attend that meeting, Ringwood Superfund site project manager Joseph Gowers said.

Last month, Arcadis also collected subsurface soil samples from each of the soil borings installed in the same area. Last October, Arcadis collected 10 surface soil samples from the Cannon Mine Pit area. The results of these samples taken on both occasions are pending.

As part of the Upper Ringwood site investigation, specific investigation work plans have been developed for the Cannon Mine Pit, Peters Mine Pit and the O'Connor disposal areas, along with the other potential disposal areas.

While similar investigation techniques like test pit installations and borings may be used in each of these areas, Arcadis customized the investigation methods to suit each work area's conditions.

Although the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection review and revise the drafted investigation work plans, the EPA has the last say on the work plan. Once the work plan is finalized, both agencies coordinate their work supervision schedules according to it.

"It should be noted that specific investigatory activities provided for in the work plans may be modified, if approved by the EPA, during implementation of the investigations, if field conditions warrant it," Gowers said.

www.youtube.com/v/US_HS2Fkxx8&hl

Peter's Mine at IronMiners.com

Peters Mine at upperringwood.com

www.state.nj.us/dep/srp/communit ... te_map.pdf

Deal reached on Ford sludge
Saturday, April 18, 2009
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
Herald News
STAFF WRITER
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RINGWOOD — Attorneys for Upper Ringwood residents have reached a tentative settlement with Ford Motor Co. in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the auto giant for dumping toxic waste in the neighborhood more than four decades ago, according to a document obtained by The Record.

Terms of the settlement were not released by the attorneys, and residents said on Friday they have not been told any details.

But a letter from their lawyers sent to state Superior Court Judge Jonathan Harris in Hackensack this week asked for a four-week stay in court proceedings to finish the "tentative global settlement" and get the signatures of all the plaintiffs.

"I don't know what the dollar amount is, but our attorneys took a risk representing us, so what they get us — so be it," resident Vivian Milligan said as she dressed to attend a wake for another community member. "This wasn't about the money. It's about what Ford did to us."

The deal will include an agreement with Ringwood, which was also named in the suit for allowing Ford to dump. But borough officials, like all the attorneys involved with the suit, declined to talk specifics.

"I can't talk about the amount, but the borough should have full coverage for the settlement from our insurance carriers," said Mayor Walter Davison.

The attorneys' letter, dated April 15, was sent by Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo P.C., part of a self-described A-Team of lawyers that represents the residents. It is unclear how much money the attorneys will receive from the settlement.

The New York City-based firm teamed up with Robert Kennedy Jr.'s New York practice, The Cochran Firm based in Alabama, and the community's original lawyers, Catalano & Plache of Washington, D.C., to force Ford to pay for health problems and property damages the residents blame on the contamination. The suit didn't ask for a specific amount but at the time it was filed, attorneys were talking about seeking $2 million per plaintiff.

Matthew Plache, who has represented the residents for more than five years, would only offer, "We're pleased that this community has benefited from the focus and attention of so many in our efforts to bring them justice."

Cancer, asthma and skin rashes plague the mountain neighborhood, and many say it is from walking, playing and inhaling the toxins. As children, they rubbed the multicolored sludge on their faces, slid down hillsides of it and squished it between their fingers. More than 600 residents, including hundreds of members of the state-recognized Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe, signed on to sue Ford.

Ford's stance has been there is no way to prove the waste caused the illnesses. The company said much of the damage could be from lifestyle choices such as smoking.

For a while, community advocates talked about having Ford pay to move everyone out of the neighborhood. But some, anchored to the land by generations of tradition, said they wouldn't move. Then, as the economy sagged and Ford's financial future looked shaky, a simple payout became more likely, said sources knowledgeable about the case but who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A mass tort lawsuit is normally settled with a neutral party brought in to decide how much each plaintiff gets. Those who have lived in the community longer and have more serious health ailments will most likely get a larger amount than those who lived in the neighborhood briefly.

To many residents, a settlement is vindication.

"This shows we're not crazy, it wasn't all in our minds: Ford poisoned us," Milligan said.

The suit, filed in January 2006, bounced back and forth between state and federal court before ending in state court, and depositions were under way. But because every plaintiff had to be deposed, it appeared the suit would drag on for years.

Ford spokesman Jon Holt confirmed that "settlement discussions are under way" but declined to talk about the case.

Ford dumped swaths of lead-based paint sludge, solvents and other industrial trash over acres of woodlands in the Upper Ringwood neighborhood and nearby Ringwood State Park. The company has been cleaning the area steadily since 2004 and, periodically before that when waste was discovered going back to the 1980s.

The area was listed as a federal Superfund cleanup site until 1994 when the federal Environmental Protection Agency, relying on Ford's assurances of an adequate cleanup, delisted it. Subsequent resident complaints about mysterious illnesses and remaining piles of visible pollution led to intervention by environmental groups and state and federal lawmakers. The EPA, conceding it erred in its de-listing of the site, has relisted it as a Superfund site. Since 2004, Ford has removed an additional 35,000 tons of toxic waste.

The Record has documented the pollution case in its continuing Toxic Legacy series, first published in 2004.

The suit does not affect the cleanup; Ford will continue to clean the site, under EPA's supervision.

"We haven't been told the amount of the settlement but I'm sure it will be fitting and fair," resident Roger DeGroat said. "As long as Ford continues to take the contamination out — that's just as important as the settlement."
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RINGWOOD — Attorneys for Upper Ringwood residents have reached a tentative settlement with Ford Motor Co. in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the auto giant for dumping toxic waste in the neighborhood more than four decades ago, according to a document obtained by The Record.

Terms of the settlement were not released by the attorneys, and residents said on Friday they have not been told any details.

But a letter from their lawyers sent to state Superior Court Judge Jonathan Harris in Hackensack this week asked for a four-week stay in court proceedings to finish the "tentative global settlement" and get the signatures of all the plaintiffs.

"I don't know what the dollar amount is, but our attorneys took a risk representing us, so what they get us — so be it," resident Vivian Milligan said as she dressed to attend a wake for another community member. "This wasn't about the money. It's about what Ford did to us."

The deal will include an agreement with Ringwood, which was also named in the suit for allowing Ford to dump. But borough officials, like all the attorneys involved with the suit, declined to talk specifics.

"I can't talk about the amount, but the borough should have full coverage for the settlement from our insurance carriers," said Mayor Walter Davison.

The attorneys' letter, dated April 15, was sent by Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo P.C., part of a self-described A-Team of lawyers that represents the residents. It is unclear how much money the attorneys will receive from the settlement.

The New York City-based firm teamed up with Robert Kennedy Jr.'s New York practice, The Cochran Firm based in Alabama, and the community's original lawyers, Catalano & Plache of Washington, D.C., to force Ford to pay for health problems and property damages the residents blame on the contamination. The suit didn't ask for a specific amount but at the time it was filed, attorneys were talking about seeking $2 million per plaintiff.

Matthew Plache, who has represented the residents for more than five years, would only offer, "We're pleased that this community has benefited from the focus and attention of so many in our efforts to bring them justice."

Cancer, asthma and skin rashes plague the mountain neighborhood, and many say it is from walking, playing and inhaling the toxins. As children, they rubbed the multicolored sludge on their faces, slid down hillsides of it and squished it between their fingers. More than 600 residents, including hundreds of members of the state-recognized Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe, signed on to sue Ford.

Ford's stance has been there is no way to prove the waste caused the illnesses. The company said much of the damage could be from lifestyle choices such as smoking.

For a while, community advocates talked about having Ford pay to move everyone out of the neighborhood. But some, anchored to the land by generations of tradition, said they wouldn't move. Then, as the economy sagged and Ford's financial future looked shaky, a simple payout became more likely, said sources knowledgeable about the case but who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A mass tort lawsuit is normally settled with a neutral party brought in to decide how much each plaintiff gets. Those who have lived in the community longer and have more serious health ailments will most likely get a larger amount than those who lived in the neighborhood briefly.

To many residents, a settlement is vindication.

"This shows we're not crazy, it wasn't all in our minds: Ford poisoned us," Milligan said.

The suit, filed in January 2006, bounced back and forth between state and federal court before ending in state court, and depositions were under way. But because every plaintiff had to be deposed, it appeared the suit would drag on for years.

Ford spokesman Jon Holt confirmed that "settlement discussions are under way" but declined to talk about the case.

Ford dumped swaths of lead-based paint sludge, solvents and other industrial trash over acres of woodlands in the Upper Ringwood neighborhood and nearby Ringwood State Park. The company has been cleaning the area steadily since 2004 and, periodically before that when waste was discovered going back to the 1980s.

The area was listed as a federal Superfund cleanup site until 1994 when the federal Environmental Protection Agency, relying on Ford's assurances of an adequate cleanup, delisted it. Subsequent resident complaints about mysterious illnesses and remaining piles of visible pollution led to intervention by environmental groups and state and federal lawmakers. The EPA, conceding it erred in its de-listing of the site, has relisted it as a Superfund site. Since 2004, Ford has removed an additional 35,000 tons of toxic waste.

The Record has documented the pollution case in its continuing Toxic Legacy series, first published in 2004.