Hazard NJ

REWIND: Highlighting the Best of Hazard NJ (So Far)

Hazard NJ is returning with four new episodes this fall, to take fresh new looks about the relationship between the Garden State's most toxic Superfund sites and climate change. Get ready for the new shows with a look back at some highlights from our first four episodes, and keep an eye on your podcast feeds: Episode 5 drops on September 28.

BONUS Episode: The Hackensack’s Comeback Moves Ahead

It’s official: The Hackensack River is New Jersey’s 115th Superfund site. EPA officials gathered with state and local leaders this week to announce the big news, which puts the polluted lower reaches of the river in line for a major cleanup that is expected to cost billions of dollars.

BONUS Episode: Funding Returns for the Superfund

The Superfund program was designed to be paid for by a tax on chemical and oil companies,  but that tax expired years ago, and the program has been strapped for cash since. 
 
But that has changed in recent months. Last fall, the chemical tax was brought back as part of the massive federal infrastructure bill. And oil tax has returned as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed today by President Joe Biden.
 
NJ Spotlight News anchor Briana Vannozzi spoke with Rep. Frank Pallone about the tax's return, and why it matters.

Episode 4: A Comeback on the Hackensack

The mud lining the Hackensack River is a mysterious mixture known to contain mercury, cadmium, lead, PCBs and plenty more nasty substances. Now the river is on its way to becoming New Jersey’s 115th Superfund site — and that’s not a bad thing.
Superstorm Sandy slammed up the Hackensack and surrounding Meadowlands, flooding towns and wrecking widespread damage. But the area’s wetlands likely blunted the blow, and with climate change intensifying storms, cleanup efforts and restoration work in the area are becoming more critical.

Episode 3: Heart of Ringwood

In July 2005, Roger De Groat stepped outside his home in the secluded, forested community of Upper Ringwood to find a hole the size of a swimming pool where his backyard used to be. Roger’s home, like the rest in the neighborhood, sits atop an extensive system of abandoned iron mines, and sinkholes like these have opened every so often for decades.
 
But what's in the mines is a different kind of lingering threat.
 
Ford Motor Company turned the mines into a toxic waste dump in the '60s and '70s, with little regard for the people, overwhelmingly Ramapough Lenape Nation tribal members, that were dumped on. Today the community is gripped by cancer and other diseases that residents believe is tied to the chemicals Ford left behind.
 
When the EPA put the Ringwood Mines on the Superfund list, a shoddy cleanup left so much pollution behind that the site had to be relisted. A second try at cleaning up the mess is now underway. As climate change brings increasingly heavy rains to the area, toxic chemicals known to be in the groundwater are threatening to migrate towards a critical water supply reservoir nearby.

Episode 2: America’s Biggest Crime Scene

The chemical company Diamond Alkali, one of the nation's main producers of Agent Orange, spent years dumping chemical waste into the Passaic River and polluting Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. In the early 80's, state and federal authorities pledged to clean the mess up but today, nearly 40 years later, toxic mud still lies beneath the water. Now the cleanup is facing a $1.8 billion price tag, an uncertain timeline, and the growing threat that intense storms fueled by climate change could stir the pollution up.

Episode 1: On Thin Ice

Growing up in Bridgewater, New Jersey, Peggy Fussell has fond memories of ice skating on a local pond—that is, until she discovered that the pond was a toxic waste site.
 
Decades after chemical producer American Cyanamid ceased its Bridgewater operations, and was declared a Superfund Site, its toxic legacy is precariously contained in local waste ponds. As climate change fuels more intense storms in the region, these ponds risk flooding and spilling over into the nearby community.
 
With a cleanup that has dragged on for decades and has no clear end in sight, what will it take to avoid catastrophe?

Trailer

New Jersey is home to the largest number of Superfund sites in the country – and while federal cleanup is underway – the bigger threat to them now is climate change. Flooding, fires, and rising sea levels could make life even harder for those who live nearby. Hazard NJ digs through the muck of each contaminated site to give a clearer picture of what the threat is and what it will take to clean it up before it’s too late. Hosted by journalist Jordan Gass-Poore’, produced by NJ Spotlight News.