This past weekend the Our Land, Our Stories exhibit opened at the Newark Public Library, where it will be shown through December 2019. This is part of “The Ramapough and the Ringwood Mines Superfund Site - History, Culture, Education, and Environmental Justice,” a New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) funded project that I direct. It focuses on illustrating the connections between scientific data, environmental remediation reports, and personal narratives of the cultural and spiritual traditions of the Ramapough community living in what is now the Ringwood Mines/Landfill Superfund Site. Our Land, Our Stories, the book and the exhibition that resulted from the project, includes visualizations of traditional Lenape stories and imaginative design proposals for memorials that mark environmental losses. The opening featured talks by a number of speakers, delicious home-cooked Native food, participation in interactive components of the exhibition, and live sketching of storytelling sessions by artists.
The opening featured a panel of speakers who have been involved with Ringwood for many years – working with the Ramapough in a number of capacities. Chief Vincent Mann, the Turtle Clan Chief, spoke about his communities efforts to bring attention to the contamination on the site and the illnesses that this has caused. Clan elder Vivian Milligan described her experiences living in Ringwood her whole life, and the continuing need to remove the toxic materials that remain on the site to this day. Chuck Stead, who has led the long fight for the remediation of a Superfund site in New York’s Torne Valley, described challenges of working with the EPA, and Judy Zelikoff, NYU-NIEHS Community Engagement Core Director and Toxicology Professor, described her lab’s work with the Turtle Clan. Jan Barry, the lead reporter for the “Toxic Legacy” series published by The Record (Bergen Co., NJ), discussed how that story brought renewed attention to the site and played a role in Ringwood Mines being relisted on the EPA’s National Priorities List.
