Ramapough elder Vivian Milligan’s home movies, filmed by her father, show beautiful scenes from the past. Friends gather, lean on cars and talk, children play, teenagers wade through the brook on a hot summer day, babies are held with their feet dangling in the water. Water was interwoven into their lives, brooks and streams winding through their woods, swimming holes and ice-skating ponds an integral part of social life. In the past, residents would drink from the Canon Mine Road Spring.
It is now a testing site for checking the quality of ground water as it becomes surface water. Today, seen from the Hasenclever Trail near Peters Mine, the surface of ponds and streams at times looks perverse, exhibiting an unnatural sheen, a kaleidoscope of refracted colors on an oily substrate. “
Two juxtapose images above created using Juxtapose by Knight Lab
Underground water movement, given the altered cavernous terrain of the mining area, along with the ever changing nature of the surface water runoff due to erosion and other soil disturbances, could change the flow of contaminants into the reservoir. And there is still the mystery of knowing the true nature of the underground materials.”
