Ford Motor Company (Ford) and the Borough of Ringwood, New Jersey, have agreed to a consent decree with the United States under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law.
This agreement requires Ford and Ringwood to perform the final phase of cleanup, known as Operable Unit 3, at the Ringwood Mines/Landfill Superfund Site located in Ringwood, New Jersey. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Administrator of the New Jersey Spill Compensation Fund are also parties to the agreement as co-plaintiffs with the United States. The cleanup, expected to cost $3.4 million, addresses benzene, 1,4-dioxane, and lead contamination in groundwater and mine water associated with the historic disposal of paint sludge and other industrial waste at the Site. In the future, this groundwater may be used as a drinking water source for nearby communities. But today, use of the contaminated groundwater would pose an unacceptable health risk to those communities; this risk will be addressed by the cleanup required by this settlement.
The approximately 500-acre Ringwood Mines/Landfill Superfund Site is located in a historic iron mining district and includes forested land, abandoned mine pits and shafts, a closed municipal landfill, and areas currently used as state parkland, utility corridors, and municipal property. Several brooks drain the site and ultimately flow to the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking water source for more than two million New Jersey residents.
From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, portions of the site were used to dispose of waste materials, including paint sludge and other industrial waste generated at Ford’s automobile assembly plant in Mahwah, New Jersey. Investigations found that some of these materials contributed to contamination in soil, groundwater, surface water, and mine shafts.
The site was added to the Superfund National Priorities List in 1983, removed in 1994 after cleanup actions were completed, and restored to the list in 2006 following the discovery of additional contamination. EPA divided the site into multiple cleanup areas, known as operable units. Cleanup work under Operable Unit 2, which addresses contaminated soil, waste, and fill material in several former mine and disposal areas, is nearing completion under a consent decree entered in 2020.