Officials in N.J. has warned squirrel hunters, who live and hunt near a toxic waste dump, about consuming the pesky rodents because they could be contaminated with lead.

This is the one and only time the State has cautioned Ringwood residents, many of whom are members of the Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe who hunt and fish in the area.

Two months ago a lead contaminated squirrel was found in the area which prompted the agency, along with the state department of Environmental Protection to send out letters advising that adults eat squirrel no more than twice a week, and less for children and pregnant women.

Lead is harmful even in small amounts. It can damage the nervous system, red blood cell production and the kidneys.

“We’ve known for a long time something was wrong here, we just didn’t know what it was,” resident Myrtle Van Dunk said.

Residents and many environmental activists believe the lead comes from toxic waste, including paint sludge, dumped in the area by the Ford Motor Co. during the 1960s and early 1970s, from its now-closed car manufacturing plant in Mahwah.

Ford is removing thousands of tons of waste from a 500-acre former mining property in the Ringwood area. The site was recently relisted on the federal Superfund list, a ranking of the country’s worst environmental dump sites, after multiple cleanups failed to remove all the sludge.

Does anyone else besides me think it’s odd that in this day and age that so many people are eating squirrel on a regular basis that a warning like this had to be made?