News from Skylands CLEAN, Inc.

High-profile attorney joins fight against toxic waste

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

BY BARBARA WILLIAMS

STAFF WRITER

RINGWOOD — A former state environmental commissioner is the latest high-profile attorney to get involved with Upper Ringwood residents coping with abandoned mines and toxic waste dumps.

Bradley Campbell, a lawyer and former state Department of Environmental Protection Agency commissioner, is representing Roger DeGroat in his three-year struggle with the borough to fix a bunk-bed-size sinkhole in his yard.

Campbell claimed today that DeGroat is only the most recent neighborhood resident “to be affected by the pattern of neglect the entire community has suffered. The borough has the funding and legal obligation to fully remediate his property."

Residents also are living amid a toxic site created when Ford Motor Co. dumped industrial waste four decades ago. They have suffered numerous illnesses and they blame them on the contamination and are suing Ford and also the borough for allowing the dumping. Robert Kennedy Jr.’s law firm as well as the Johnnie Cochran firm are among those representing the residents in the suit.

Part of DeGroat's yard caved in in July 2005, right after he had finished mowing his lawn. The void went down about 15 feet, swallowing up a wrought-iron chair that has never been recovered. Soon after, nearby Sheehan Road also collapsed.

To fix the voids, residents and local officials appealed to the state for financial assistance. Ringwood received a $238,000 grant from the Department of Community Affairs in 2006, specifically to fix DeGroat's property.

"By accepting this money, the borough took on the legal obligation of having to fix this," Campbell said.

But borough officials used the money to pay for engineering fees and added it to an $180,000 Department of Transportation grant to fix the road. They say the money was redirected because of a bureaucratic mishap that they are still trying to unravel: a DCA letter came after the money was awarded saying it couldn’t be used for private property and then that decision was reversed for reasons the DCA has not explained. But by that time, the borough had used the money on the engineering costs.

Mayor Walter Davison said “the prior administration redirected those funds and now we’ve applied for a $400,000 grant that would be used in part to remediate Roger’s sinkhole.”

Meanwhile, local officials are working on a plan that would subdivide DeGroat's property and buy the section with the sinkhole and then repair it. It would mean DeGroat would lose a large section of his yard, which is what Campbell will be fighting.

"I want to stay where I'm at and have the sinkhole fixed," DeGroat said. "The borough had the money, it should have been fixed. I'm awfully glad Mr. Campbell is helping me out."

As the DEP commissioner, Campbell had visited the Upper Ringwood neighborhood several times to review the state’s part in the ongoing Ford contamination cleanup.

E-mail: williamsb@northjersey.com