Warwick Against the Radon Dump successful campaign was 30 years ago

By Roger Gavan
WARWICK — It was a problem that first affected the residents of Vernon, New Jersey, but 30 years ago a group of concerned citizens living in Warwick and calling themselves WARD (Warwick Against the Radon Dump) campaigned in both New Jersey and New York.
And they helped block a plan to dump radium contaminated soil in nearby Vernon.
Technically, radon refers to the kind of radioactive gas that emanates from the radioactive solid element of radium, which had tainted the soil.

Blended, contaminated soil

In the spring of 1986, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection needed to dispose of 10,000 cubic yards of this contaminated soil dug up from the yards of nine Essex County homes.
Agency officials had quietly proposed that the contaminated soil be blended with clean soil and then spread over a site at the intersection of Route 94 and Price's Switch Road, adjacent to Wawayanda State Park in Vernon, and not far from the border with New York.
According to an article in The New York Times, the dirt, which had been contaminated by radium from an old clock factory, was enough "to cover a football field to a height of five feet, five inches."

Meetings at the dining room table

Local residents, including those living in Warwick, who had only learned about the plan in July, were outraged and warned the environmental officials that they feared the radium would eventually seep into their drinking water as well as the water used to irrigate their farms.
Many formed groups that were even willing to risk arrest if they had to hold off the trucks carrying the radium waste by sitting down in front of them.
Jed Bark founded WARD, one the citizens' groups in Warwick.
"A group of us met in our dining room to talk about what we could do about it," he recalled. "Anyone who wanted to join WARD was welcome. People put aside their narrow interests to work toward a great common interest, protecting the Warwick Valley. We were all working together, but not against an enemy we all opposed. We weren't fighting the people in New Jersey whose homes were built on this radium containing soil. In fact, we gave them all the money we had in our bank account after we persuaded New Jersey to give up the plan."

Town, county sue

The Town of Warwick filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction, followed by Orange County, which sued the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
"It looked good for our side," he said. "Apparently, the New Jersey officials agreed because they quietly dropped the plan just before Thanksgiving in 1986."
In July, 1987 WCBS-TV reported that 100 barrels of the radium soil was to go to a dump in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to be mixed with other radioactive waste and put in a federal dump.
The following year radium soil from Montclair, New Jersey, was reported to be destined for a dump in Utah.

'Good to remember'

"Hundreds of people in Warwick were actively part of WARD or supporting WARD and all should be thanked," said Bark. "We put aside our differences and worked together. It's good to remember."