HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A 572-acre former explosives plant whose lead, mercury, and solvent contamination spread under a Pompton Lakes neighborhood, now a decades-long EPA-overseen cleanup.
2000 Cannonball Road, Pompton Lakes, NJ 07442
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No public access to the closed industrial site. This is a drive-by along Cannonball Road and the public edges of Pompton Lake; the cleanup area itself is fenced and off-limits.
Access
Limited Access
Public roadway and lakefront; the former plant grounds are fenced and inaccessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1902 · One of New Jersey's largest legacy explosives-manufacturing contamination sites · Off-site lead and mercury contamination at roughly 140 homes near Acid Brook · Groundwater solvent plume and vapor intrusion beneath a residential neighborhood · Long-running EPA- and NJDEP-supervised cleanup; ownership passed to Chemours in 2015
DuPont began manufacturing explosives at the Pompton Lakes Works in 1902 and ran the plant until it closed in April 1994. Across roughly 572 acres in Pompton Lakes and Wanaque, the company produced lead azide, aluminum and bronze-shelled blasting caps, metal wires, and aluminum and copper shells. Waste-management practices over those decades left a legacy of contamination in the soil, sediment, and groundwater both on and off the property.
The EPA identified lead and mercury as the primary contaminants in soil and sediment. Disposed materials also included explosive powders, chlorinated solvents, and waste wire-drawing solutions. A stream called Acid Brook ran off the DuPont grounds and discharged into Pompton Lake, carrying contamination downstream. According to the EPA, lead and mercury releases migrated off site and contaminated soil at roughly 140 homes near Acid Brook.
The more contentious problem has been groundwater. Volatile organic compounds, including chlorinated solvents, formed a plume that moved beneath a residential neighborhood, creating a vapor-intrusion risk in homes above it. A groundwater extraction system has operated since 1998, and roughly 337 vapor-mitigation systems have been installed in affected houses. About 146,600 cubic yards of contaminated soil and sediment have been excavated from Pompton Lake.
A 2009 New Jersey health survey reported that women in Pompton Lakes were hospitalized for certain cancers about 40 percent more often than in neighboring communities, and men about 23 percent more than the state average, with elevated kidney-cancer rates among women and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among men. Regulators declined to establish causation, noting that correlation does not prove cause. Ownership of the site and its cleanup obligations passed to the Chemours Company in 2015, and remediation continues under New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and EPA oversight.
Sources
Unlike most entries on a haunted map, the Pompton Lakes DuPont site has no apparitions, no coin-on-the-bridge ritual, and no ghost-tour stop. What it has instead is a documented record of harm. For most of the twentieth century, a major chemical company manufactured explosives here, and the byproducts of that work, including lead, mercury, explosive powders, and chlorinated solvents, ended up in the soil, the sediment of Pompton Lake, and the groundwater.
The part residents found hardest to live with was invisible. A plume of solvent-contaminated groundwater spread beneath a neighborhood, and vapors from it could rise into homes, prompting the installation of hundreds of vapor-mitigation systems. A 2009 state health survey found elevated rates of certain cancers in the borough compared with neighboring towns. Regulators stopped short of blaming the plant, but for many families the statistics and the plume under their houses were enough to define the place.
HauntBound includes Pompton Lakes as a true-crime and environmental-history site rather than a paranormal one. There is nothing to enter and nothing to summon. The story is the slow contamination of a community by an industry that operated here for more than ninety years, and the decades of cleanup that followed.
View the fenced former DuPont explosives plant from Cannonball Road and the public edge of Pompton Lake. There is no tour and no public access to the grounds, which remain under active EPA and state-supervised remediation. The interest here is the industrial and environmental history, not a built attraction.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Hawthorne, NJ
On January 9-10, 1850, former farmhand John Jonston stabbed Judge John Van Winkle and his wife Jane to death at their home on Goffle Road in what would become Hawthorne, marking the first murder in Passaic County's recorded history. Jonston was convicted and hanged in the county's first execution. The house gained a haunted reputation, with an 1882 New York Times account describing it as 'the abode of unearthly visitants.'
Elfrida, AZ
The property operated as the Cochise Guest Lodge and Ranch, a dude ranch in Arizona's remote Sulphur Springs Valley. On December 3, 1977, ranch hand James Dean Clark killed four people — ranch owners Charles and Mildred Thumm and two fellow wranglers, Gerald McFerron and George Martin — in a spree that ended with his arrest in El Paso. Clark was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in 1978 and executed by the State of Arizona on April 14, 1993. The property was subsequently acquired by VisionQuest National, a youth rehabilitation organization founded in 1973, which operates it as a residential program to this day.
Fort Myers, FL
Architect Francis J. Kennard designed the Lee County Courthouse, and its cornerstone was laid on April 13, 1915. The Classical Revival building served as the county seat from its completion until 1984. Among the trials held here were the first death-penalty proceedings in Lee County history. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1989, and today houses county offices including the Lee County Board of Commissioners.