Supporters turn out for Ramapoughs at Mahwah meeting

MAHWAH — Dozens rallied Thursday night to support the Ramapough Lenape Nation against a recent township lawsuit to remove tepees from their tribal property.

Environmental activists, government officials, neighbors and several Ramapoughs made up the crowd of more than 100 at a Township Council meeting. They cheered and spoke in support of the tribe’s right to religious and cultural expression. 

In a speech to the council, tribal Chief Dwaine Perry declared the Ramapoughs a sovereign entity of the land, akin to the Ramapo River, forests and animals.

Township officials say the Native American tribe's 14-acre property off Halifax Road is being used as a place of public assembly and as a campground, complete with tepees, tents and a canvas cabin, all of which violate local zoning law.

Last week, the township obtained a temporary restraining order in state Superior Court that barred the Ramapoughs from using the property “in any manner that is in violation of the township’s zoning ordinance.”

Howard Horowitz, a geography professor at Ramapo College, said the tribe’s ceremonial events have been a great benefit to the Ramapo community for cultural diversity studies.

“The basic issue is that this is a threat to constitutional freedoms: freedom of speech and freedom of religious practice,” he said of the township’s lawsuit.

The tribe has earned the backing of environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch, an international organization dedicated to the protection of clean, natural drinking water.

“We stand with the Ramapough Lenape Nation and their right to freely express their cultural and religious beliefs on their land,” said Matt Smith, a Food & Water Watch spokesman.

Smith read aloud a letter from state Assemblyman Tim Eustace. In it, Eustace called the township’s recent lawsuit a “de facto attempt to inhibit the Ramapough nation’s free exercise of religion.”  

Eustace’s office could not be reached late Thursday.

The tribe built the tepees last fall in protest of an oil pipeline that is expected to run through North Jersey, including Mahwah, and also to show solidarity with Native Americans in North Dakota challenging a similar project through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

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Pilgrim Pipeline has proposed building a 178-mile dual pipeline system that would run from Albany to Linden, transporting an estimated 16.8 million gallons of crude oil daily.

The township to date has been an ardent opponent of the pipeline’s construction.

Ken Collins, a Green Party candidate for state Assembly, cautioned the township against stifling grass-roots protest against the pipeline, calling the Ramapoughs an ally in that fight.

“If you want to beat the pipeline, you have to nurture and support the activities at the camp,” he said.

While Pilgrim has yet to file construction permits in New Jersey, preliminary maps show it entering Mahwah more than a mile west of Route 287, possibly near tribal land.

“The Pilgrim Pipeline would result in a moral injury to the Ramapough Lenape Nation,” said Paula Rogovin, the founder of the Coalition to Ban Unsafe Oil Trains, a Bergen County group.

The township and Ramapoughs are due in state Superior Court on June 23, said Township Attorney Brian Chewcaskie.

Email: nobile@northjersey.com