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RINGWOOD, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey officials sued Ford Motor Co. on Thursday, alleging that the automaker contaminated the ancestral homeland of a Native American tribe by dumping paint sludge and other pollutants into a former mine.

The action in state court seeks unspecified damages to restore the land, and to compensate the state and local communities for losses they sustained when natural resources were damaged.

The suit accuses Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford of dumping contaminants at the former Ringwood Mine site, a 500-acre site that encompasses the homelands of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, a tribe formally recognized by the state.

Tribe members attended Thursday’s news conference and spoke of years of illnesses and deaths they attribute to contamination of their land.

“Can you promise my community a future?” tribe member Angel Stefancik asked New Jersey officials during the news conference. “I’ve lived on contaminated land my whole life. I want the kind of land where my ancestors grew up, where you can walk barefoot. I want my rabbits, my toads, fruit trees.

“I lost my grandmother to cancer,” she said. “I’m 22 and I have a long list of chronic conditions. It’s so hard living in that area, but this is my land. I was born there and I will die there.”

The state’s lawsuit alleges that Ford purchased Ringwood Mines in 1965 to use it as a landfill where it could dispose of hazardous waste generated by its auto assembly plant in Mahwah, which was one of the largest auto assembly plants in the U.S.

Between 1967 and 1974, the lawsuit asserts, Ford disposed thousands of tons…

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RINGWOOD, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey officials sued Ford Motor Co. on Thursday, alleging that the automaker contaminated the ancestral homeland of a Native American tribe by dumping paint sludge and other pollutants into a former mine.

The action in state court seeks unspecified damages to restore the land, and to compensate the state and local communities for losses they sustained when natural resources were damaged.

The suit accuses Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford of dumping contaminants at the former Ringwood Mine site, a 500-acre site that encompasses the homelands of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, a tribe formally recognized by the state.

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Tribe members attended Thursday’s news conference and spoke of years of illnesses and deaths they attribute to contamination of their land.

“Can you promise my community a future?” tribe member Angel Stefancik asked New Jersey officials during the news conference. “I’ve lived on contaminated land my whole life. I want the kind of land where my ancestors grew up, where you can walk barefoot. I want my rabbits, my toads, fruit trees.

“I lost my grandmother to cancer,” she said. “I’m 22 and I have a long list of chronic conditions. It’s so hard living in that area, but this is my land. I was born there and I will die there.”

The state’s lawsuit alleges that Ford purchased Ringwood Mines in 1965 to use it as a landfill where it could dispose of hazardous waste generated by its auto assembly plant in Mahwah, which was one of the largest auto assembly plants in the U.S.

Between 1967 and 1974, the lawsuit asserts, Ford disposed thousands of tons of toxic paint sludge in the forests and on the grounds within the Ringwood Mines, as well as in its abandoned mineshafts and pits. Other pollutants were…

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State authorities on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company for dumping automobile paint sludge in former iron mines and on Native American land in Ringwood, marking another chapter in what has become more than half a century of corporate and government failures to clean up harmful toxic waste.

The Ringwood mine area is the only contaminated site in the United States to be placed on the federal Superfund list twice. It also sits precariously close to a reservoir that supplies drinking water to millions of New Jerseyans.

Now, the state Department of Environmental Protection is suing in state Superior Court for natural resource damages — a form of compensation that seeks to fund restoration projects to bring contaminated land as close to its pre-pollution state as possible.

The mine area is home to about 200 residents, including many members of the state-recognized Ramapough Lenape Nation, who for decades have complained of cancers, respiratory diseases, skin ailments and other health problems.

On Thursday, some of them grew emotional describing the loss of family members and what was once fertile land for hunting, fishing and foraging. Powerful people had stood behind lecterns and made promises before, only for them to fail to come to fruition.

“What’s to say, when you’re out of office, the next people aren’t going to say, ‘Oh, throw it to the back of the line’ because there are so many people ahead of us?” Marcey Langhorn, a member of the tribe’s Turtle Clan, asked acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin and DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette during a press conference at Ringwood State Park.

“For me, to trust the state is very hard.”

A spokeswoman for Ford said the company “takes its environmental responsibility seriously.”

“We understand this has affected the community and have worked cooperatively with (local, state and federal…

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Ford Motor Company is being sued by New Jersey state officials for contaminating hundreds of acres of land, with a large population of Ramapough Lenape people, that the company used for the waste disposal for its largest assembly plant that was built in 1955.

The lawsuit accuses the automobile company of contaminating the water, soil, groundwater, vegetation, and the air in the area in Ringwood, New Jersey, as well as selling part of the land to the state without disclosing to them the damage that they had caused there.

The lawsuit is pursuing action on eight counts, including negligence and trespassing.

According to the lawsuit, in 1965, Ford purchased 400 acres of Ringwood Mines for the purpose of disposing of its waste from the automobile plant built a decade previously.

The Ringwood Mines area has nearly 50 residential units and about 200 residents.

Starting 1967, for seven years the company used the space to throw away “tons of toxic paint sludge and drummed waste and other non-liquid hazardous waste”.

Meanwhile, around 1970, the company sold off parts of the land to numerous entities including a non-profit and other government institutions, without disclosing the full extent of the damage they had caused on the land.

“Bottom line is that Ford demonstrated little to no regard for the environment,” said the acting attorney general, Matt Platkin, when announcing the lawsuit on Thursday.

“They turned a blind eye to the risks that their actions have imposed on the lives of 200 residents who live here, which includes Native Americans who are historically and disproportionately exposed to environmental harms,” he said, according to a video of the announcement shared on Facebook.

Vincent Mann, chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation’s Turtle Clan, and New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, Shawn M LaTourette, were also present at the announcement.

“Today is one…

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