This 400th anniversary campaign, carried out throughout 2013, is finished. The work to honor treaties with Native Nations and protect the Earth continues. Learn more, or join in that work: contact the Onondaga Nation, Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, Neetopk Keetopk (Hudson Valley), Onondaga Canoe and Kayak Club or Two Row Paddle down the Grand (2016).

Ramapough Seek Support for Environmental Clean Up

Ramapo Lenape Turtle Clan Chief, Vincent Mann and Algonquin educator Evan Pritchard at Two Row Fest in Beacon.

Ramapo Lenape Turtle Clan Chief, Vincent Mann and Algonquin educator Evan Pritchard at Two Row Fest in Beacon.

The Ramapough are seeking support for a full cleanup of their ancestral lands in what is now known as New Jersey. Turtle Clan leader Vincent Mann who welcomed the Two Row Campaign to Rampapough territory in the lower Hudson this summer, has requested support for our Ramapo relatives on November 7, 2013 at the 7 pm EPA hearing at Martin J Ryerson Middle School, 130 Valley Road, Ringwood, NJ. 07456.

The Ramapough are seeking more time to respond with a more effective solution and to show the government agencies that people care about Mother Earth. The Ramapough efforts in seeking clean land have been continuously stymied for 49 years but they haven’t given up.

The recent final EPA proposal was made without the presence of the people affected.  It ignores the possibility that  hazardous substances may potentially find a pathway to the Wanaque Reservoir, thus poisoning the drinking and bathing waters of the 2 to 3 million souls in the area from Ringwood south, including the greater Newark area.

The proposal consists of capping Peters Mine, Canon Mine, removing some fill from the O’Connor Landfill, located between the two, then capping the O’Connor landfill. It is further proposed to build a new recycling center and then move the existing center across Peters Mine Road to the O’Connor Landfill.

There is no mention of preventing the potential further contamination of the ground water which all flows to the Wanaque Reservoir.

These places are currently undisturbed. The proposed actions would disturb the land and the residents, polluting the air and further exposing the residents, without any substantial change, leaving the poisons which are killing them and have killed our relatives, in the earth, while moving some of the contamination to other places [contaminating them] and leaving the people to live on a Superfund Site in perpetuity