For 25 years, Ford Motor Company dumped toxic waste from a nearby factory into New Jersey’s Ringwood State Park.

Overrun with paint deposits, battery acid, and chemicals, local residents call the area “Sludge Hill.”

The sludge, which is now rock hard, was once a colorful liquid goo. It was also a toxic brew of arsenic, benzene, and lead, and it was runny, slippery, and dangerous.

Members of the Ramapough tribe, who’ve lived on the land for generations, routinely fell ill from various poisons. Their children suffered nosebleeds any time they played outside.

Cancer rates in the area are elevated, and the Bergen Record found arsenic and lead one hundred times above safe levels in the nearby Wanaque Watershed, which supplies water to millions.

But instead of working to clean up the area, the Environmental Protection Agency is actually considering giving the land back to Ford to use it as a toxic waste dump.

According to ABCNews, the town in question is as contaminated as nuclear bomb sites:

A walk down one Ringwood street, Van Dunk Street, in November, found someone in every single house except one who had died from cancer or had cancer according to Vivian Milligan, one of the residents now suing Ford.

No one in the town trusts the government to stand up for their rights to clean water, air, and environment.

The EPA is announcing its plan in less than two weeks.

Edison Wetlands Association started a petition on Change.org asking the EPA to keep the park public and make Ford clean up the park for the public’s use.

Right now, Ford is secretly lobbying both state and federal officials to gain the right to resume toxic dumping in the park. But a national outcry can outdo them.

Sign Edison Wetlands’ petition to the stop Ford from polluting before the EPA’s deadline in less than two weeks

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One Comment

  1. Wow, it doesn’t seem like Ford is 100% to blame, we are complicit in the behavior of corporations. They are limited liability charter (LLC) which means that they operate on the assumption that they provide a service for us for the betterment of our society.

    When corporations act in this manner, they should lose their ability to operate. 25 years is shameful, but it’s doubling shameful that we continue to allow them to hurt our environment and our people.

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