The EPA has granted the Borough of Ringwood, N.J., the authority to build a recycling center on the Ringwood Mines Superfund site.
Initial cleanup plans called for the O’Connor Disposal Area – the future site of the recycling center – to be excavated, but the Borough was able to prove to the EPA that the construction of the recycling center would not take longer than excavation.
Ford’s automobile assembly plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, dumped paint sludge and waste at the site during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Before the recycling center is built, about 106,400 tons of contaminated soil and waste will be consolidated and capped with topsoil and asphalt, the EPA said. More than one-third of the land at the site will then be planted with native vegetation.
The 500-acre Ringwood Mines site includes abandoned mine shafts and pits, an inactive landfill and other disposal areas. So far, the entire cleanup at this Superfund site has been covered by Ford and the Borough of Ringwood.