Dredging work is expected to begin on a Superfund site in Brooksville next week, one of just two major projects that remain to be completed after years of cleanup on a section of the former Callahan metal mine.
The site had been mined since at least the 1880s and, for a few years in the late 1960s and 70s, was an open-pit mine extracting primarily copper and zinc.
Various types of contamination were later traced to the mine. Waste rock containing high levels of arsenic and lead was found on neighboring residential properties, groundwater was contaminated with heavy metals and the mine site had levels of polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCBs, which are toxins that can cause cancer, among other environmental issues. In 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency designated it a Superfund site, which gave the federal agency the ability to fund and organize cleanup efforts.
When those efforts are eventually completed, it will mark the end of a wide-ranging remediation process that has spanned decades and millions of dollars.
It’s not clear yet how the privately owned site will be used in the future, although courts have limited it from becoming a residential property or source of drinking water.
Cleanup officials have previously said the site could host “passive recreation” such as boating, but that it may never be possible to safely fish or harvest shellfish there. A representative of the Smith Cove Preservation Trust, the longtime owner of the property, told the Weekly Packet newspaper last year that he’d like to see it reforested.
A Wisconsin-based contractor will start dredging in Goose Cove “on or around” Monday, according to a public notice. The work will be done with an excavator on a barge.
The material that’s removed from the northern and southern ends of the cove will be disposed of in Goose Pond, the notice said.
Between 6,000 and 10,000 cubic yards of sediment will be removed across roughly 1.5 acres, according to bid documents for the project. From there, it will be pumped into a former mine pit for containment.
Work will take place 12 hours a day every day but Sundays and is expected to finish on Oct. 29.
The second remaining project will be covering a pile of waste rocks, according to an EPA update from last year. That project could be completed in 2026, according to initial estimates.
Overall remediation efforts are now expected to wrap up in the fall of 2027, an EPA cleanup schedule shows. Last year, officials had believed it could be completed this year or next.
Agency officials weren’t available to answer further questions on Thursday.
