Ramapo Mountain watershed issues and the story of the Ramapough-Lenape people are old familiars for many in these parts. But they hold interest and reflect a wider concern with governmental and industrial practices currently at work. Say fracking and safe drinking water. This weekend Chuck Stead will play host to Environmental Studies Professor Alesia Maltz and a contingent of graduate students from Ramapo College and New Hampshire’s Antioch University.

The Diversity, Justice & Inclusion Workshop will use the warehouse on Torne Valley Road near the Torne Center as its base of operations. Friday night from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. a panel discussion takes place that investigates the Ramapough-Lenape history and the tribe’s effort to become a federally recognized tribe.

Geoff Welch, Curator of Harmony Hall and member of the Ramapo River Committee, said that the panel discussion will explore the tribe’s ongoing plight.

“The tribe’s history has been distorted over time,” Welch said. “It’s really about some of the prejudice or misinformation, the characterization of the tribe over time — the story of the Ramapoughs.”

The Friday evening panel discussion will include Jan Barry, head writer of a Toxic Legacy series with the Bergen Record that covered toxic paint sludge Ford buried in the Ramapo Mountains; Ben McGrath, author of A Sticky Kind of Prejudice on the Ramapough fight against the Ford Motor Company; Michael Edelstein, New York Magazine writer and author of Contaminated Communities; Chuck Stead environmental educator with Cornell Extension and Ramapo College; and Geoff Welch.