Editor’s Note: “Hazard NJ” is an investigative podcast and multimedia project from NJ Spotlight News revealing the dangers climate change poses to the state’s Superfund sites and the health threats that poses to people. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and more. Read stories and watch reports here.
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 and poorly understood 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.