Thursday, January 19, 2006
By MARY JO LAYTON and BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITERS
Special report: Toxic Legacy
In what could be the largest environmental lawsuit ever in New Jersey, Upper Ringwood residents sued the Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday, alleging personal injury and property damage from industrial waste dumped a generation ago.
More than 700 former and current residents claim that toxic castoffs from Ford's former Mahwah factory caused a multitude of illnesses in the community and even now have essentially left their neighborhood a Superfund site.
The mass tort claim says Ford and its agents dumped an ocean of contaminants, concealed the health hazards the waste created and deliberately conducted only a partial cleanup.
The 13-count suit filed in state Superior Court in Paterson alleges fraud and negligence and seeks medical monitoring and unspecified financial compensation. In a separate filing last month, attorneys put the borough of Ringwood on notice that it also may be sued. The attorneys said they would seek $3 million per resident, a total that could exceed $2 billion.
"We are seeking just and fair compensation for the complainants," attorney Joseph S. Rosato, who works in the New York office of The Cochran Firm, said after delivering the suit.
"There's a lot to be done for this community."
Rosato is part of the A-team of attorneys behind Wednesday's suit, which pits Native Americans against an icon of American business. The residents are represented by marquee firms, including one founded by Robert Kennedy Jr.
Among the residents are hundreds of members of the state-recognized Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe, who have lived in the remote community for more than 200 years.
They blame Ford for a multitude of illnesses: pervasive asthma, unexplained skin rashes and many cancers. In the suit, the residents seek compensation for personal injuries, emotional distress, "fear of cancer," cost of medical care and the expense of medical monitoring.
"This is a nightmare that has turned into a dream," said Vivian Milligan, a neighborhood leader. "All the waiting and waiting, it became unbearable, and it's finally turning around."
Ford spokesman Jon Holt declined comment pending review of the litigation.
Ford acknowledges that contractors it hired dumped millions of gallons of paint sludge and other industrial waste in this mountain community from 1967 to 1971, when a Ford subsidiary owned the land. Tons of waste remain on the onetime Superfund site, despite four federally supervised cleanups.
In the ongoing cleanup, Ford reports it has removed more waste this time than in all the previous projects combined. Last week, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to relist the Ringwood site to guarantee a thorough and federally backed cleanup.
"Ford's choice to perform four inadequate investigations and cleanups has devastated this community," said Kevin Madonna, a law partner of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In preparing its defense, Ford is not expected to deny that a company contractor dumped industrial waste at the site 30 years ago. However, the company is likely to seek to shift liability onto others it also considers responsible.
Besides Ford, the suit names a company that carted waste for Ford, ISA in New Jersey, and others including an environmental consultant and local manufacturer, Arrow Group Industries of Haskell. An executive with that company declined comment pending review of the suit.
Many of the suit's contentions mirror the findings of The Record's "Toxic Legacy" series last fall. The series found that Ford's consultants had conducted only a limited Superfund cleanup 10 years ago while assuring the EPA the job was thoroughly done. Tests by the paper found dangerous levels of contaminants in soil and water.
The lawsuit accuses Ford and the other companies of negligence and fraud in failing to warn residents of the extent of the dumping and the potential danger it posed. It claims Ford and other companies profited from "virtually free disposal and storage of toxic waste for decades."
The complaint accuses the companies of trespass and battery, because waste ended up in some of the residents' properties.
The residents, many of them descendants of the Van Dunks, the Manns and the DeGroats who have lived in the ridges and hollows of this mountain since the Revolutionary War era, will ask a jury to decide one of the most difficult legal and scientific issues: Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between Ford's pollution and the illness in the population?
Lawyers will be able to note New Jersey's own findings announced last July of elevated rates of some cancers in this low-income minority community.
The case for the residents will include myriad medical records, environmental test results and volumes of Ford's documents.
Families, the case alleges, were continually exposed to a variety of toxic substances including volatile organic compounds, heavy metals including lead, arsenic and chromium, and PCBs, which caused widespread illness.
Since so many people hunt and hike in this rural enclave, the exposure was widespread: through inhalation of toxic vapors from burning contaminants at the dumpsite, skin contact with contaminated soil and ingestion of contaminated well water, the suit maintains.
However, environmental experts warn that the plaintiffs will have difficulty proving that toxic substances caused illness or death. Often environmental studies are inconclusive in linking exposure of industrial waste to illness, experts say.
The massive tort claim joins the ranks of major New Jersey environmental civil cases in a state that is home to 135 Superfund sites, the most in the country.
Among the more notorious are the Toms River case, in which nearly 70 families whose children were stricken with cancer won a settlement of at least $13 million, paid by two chemical companies and a water company in 2001.
In Pompton Lakes, more than 1,000 property owners sued DuPont in 2002, arguing that the chemical giant was responsible for multiple illnesses in the community.
The case was settled for an undisclosed amount and a guarantee of health monitoring paid for by DuPont.
Staff Writer Jan Barry contributed to this article. E-mail: layton@northjersey.com and williamsb@northjersey.com
THE LAWSUIT
Upper Ringwood residents are suing Ford and its contractors who dumped toxic waste in their neighborhood decades ago.
More than 700 current and former residents seek property damages, personal injury compensation, medical monitoring and punitive damages. They claim Ford's waste caused them illnesses including skin rashes, asthma and cancers.
The suit accuses Ford and others of negligence, fraud, consumer fraud, conspiracy, trespass and battery for allegedly failing to tell residents how dangerous the waste was, and then deliberately failing to clean it up properly.
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TIMELINE
1967-71: Ford Motor Co. contractors dump thousands of tons of paint sludge into a former mining area of Ringwood that is also home to nearly 500 residents.
1983: The area is put on the federal Superfund list of hazardous sites.
1994: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declares the area clean and takes it off Superfund list.
2004: Residents formally complain of serious illnesses, triggering renewed cleanup efforts.
2005: Toxic contaminants are found in residential lots; more than 13,000 tons of sludge is removed from Ringwood State Park.
2006: Residents file suit against Ford, say they may sue Ringwood Borough.