 Campaigns > Local Action > New Jersey
New Jersey
The 33rd Annual Clearwater Festival was held in Asbury Park this past September. The festival, sponsored by the Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater, included live music, speakers, and displays. This year’s focus was on environmental justice and featured CHEJ’s Los Gibbs. Folk singer Pete Seeger founded the Clearwater environmental group in 1967 on the Hudson River in New York. (Winter 2008)
The Ringwood Neighborhood Action Association remains vigilant in its efforts to get the EPA to cleanup the Ringwood Mines Superfund site, first listed on the EPA’s National Priorities List 25 years ago. At a meeting last May, EPA officials promised to review a previously “cleaned up” area at the site when activist Robert Spiegel showed them a box full of sludge collected from the area, known as Sludge Hill. That meeting was only the latest in a series of meetings, litigation efforts, and outcry from community members and state and local officials about the persistent pollution left by the Ford Motor Company on the 500-acre site. Local residents, including the Ramapough Indian Nation, are concerned that their health problems stem from the site. (Fall 2008)
Residents of Haledon are unhappy with a neighboring cement plant and are organizing to get their voices heard. Residents want the cement-mixing plant to become a better and respectful neighbor. They want operating hours to be reasonable; aesthetic barriers built between their homes and the plant; and a better dust management plan. They are meeting with city leaders to present a proposal for making this plant a better neighbor. Local organizers expect to get what they want because they are working together with a consistent message and persistent effort. (Summer 2008)
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