Well, tonight a new health study is reigniting alarm over toxic contamination at the Ringwood Mines Superfund site in Passaic County, contradicting the Environmental Protection Agency's official stance that the area is safe.

Researchers from NYU Langone say dangerous pollutants remain on the site, including hazardous levels of lead, arsenic, and cadmium.

>> The residents, especially members of the Ramapola-Napa Indian Nation who live on or near the area say they're still suffering serious health effects tied to the pollution.

Now, with fresh evidence in hand, they're calling on the EPA to act.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagas has the story.

>> It's not clean.

It's not clean enough to protect the health and well-being of the people.

>> For researchers and members of the Ramapo-Lenape Turtle Clan living near this Ringwood Superfund site, it feels like deja vu all over again.

They're once again being told by the EPA that the site of extreme contamination in Ringwood is all clear, even though recent testing conducted by researchers at NYU Langone Health shows that it's not.

As the EPA is close to pulling up stakes, after 42 years concluding its work is complete, proclaiming the site is as human exposure under control, the NYU Langone Medical School has found that there is still dangerous levels of contaminants in the soils and air and in the bodies of the residents here.

To fully understand it, you have to go back.

This was once the Ringwood Iron Mines in the 17 and 1800s.

Then in the 1960s and 70s, Ford Motor Company used the abandoned mine shafts to dump toxic sludge and used car parts, causing extreme levels of pollution that led the EPA to deem it a Superfund site in 1983.

It then proclaimed it clean a decade later.

It seemed appalling to us because all of the material that had been listed, most of it was still there, right in plain sight, never even touched.

And yet the federal government, the EPA, claimed that it was all clean and it was okay for us to go back to live our lives as we always had.

And that amounts to a death sentence.

We have a community that used to be 1,100 plus people that now dwindled down to less than 200.

Acting Chief of the Ramapo-Lenape Nation, Vincent Mann says entire families have been erased since the EPA first left the site in the 90s, dying from sickness, including all forms of cancer as a result of toxic exposure.

There are a lot of people who are responsible for the failures, the EPA being one of them, this town being another, the state of New Jersey has also failed our people, Ford Motor Corporation has failed our people.

The EPA put Ringwood Mines back on the Superfund list in 2006 after years of complaints from residents.

They've since capped waterways and removed millions of pounds of contamination from the mines and soil, but earlier this year researchers found that the EPA has deemed the site human exposure under control, meaning there's no unacceptable risks of toxic exposure.

But NYU toxicologists who've been testing the region and residents over the last 13 years say their most recent study proves otherwise.

In many people there were high levels of lead, of arsenic, of cadmium.

We lead in the soil at rates of ringwood.

We also found levels about 10 fold high In a statement, the EPA t yet to complete all clean site that groundwater cle being designed and the ve to surface waters still n completed.

They've also n the data from NYU, but on will evaluate it and dete actions are necessary.

Ti North Jersey District Wat worries that capping isn' the wanna Q reservoir, wh to nearly three million p from toxic one for dioxin nation early on when they to I guess cap and test.

we would prefer a cleanup device that if there is a be able to detect it miles from here and clean it before it would ever reach the reservoir.

He worries that no remediation will be enough to protect the lives of the tribe members who live here.

In Ringwood, I'm Joanna Gaggis, NJ Spotlight News.

Support for The Medical Report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

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