Boondoggle is a term meaning “engaging in useless work.” This term is often used when a government agency utilizes its elaborate procedures in search of a project or purpose to justify its existence. It strikes me that this term fits perfectly for the current brouhaha being stirred up over the old Callahan Mine site in Brooksville.

I see and hear all sorts of bureaucratic “procedures” brought into play in what seems to be a vain hope that a “problem” may be found to justify all the “procedures.” Various meetings have been held, the purpose of which seems to be to see if anyone can think up a situation which might possibly give somebody an excuse to do a study to justify their further employment. The town has lived with the mine for 25 years, and while the scars are a blot on the landscape, I know of no serious chemical problems that have shown up. This is not another Love Canal.

The “problems” brought up at the meetings that I have attended have been notably nonfactual – all indefinite, tentative and vague. Statements such as “some evidence that there might be some problems” or “this is perhaps something we should look into” or “might have some effect on Penobscot Bay.”

One speaker from the state group mentioned that “they” had tested a few wells in the area and found excess lead in them and that when they found lead they could provide bottled water. He neither located the wells nor explained their disposition. His entire testimony was so nonscientific and vague as to be useless.

With respect to what is to be found in wells in the town, the Colby Atlas of Hancock County published in 1881 shows on that site a “Rosier Copper Mine” and a “Rosier Extension Mine.” It also shows mines literally all over town labeled “copper” or “silver,” which would seem to indicate that wherever one might dig or drive a well these metals or their geological associates might be found.

The most recent meeting was called by the Maine Environmental Research Institute and sounded just like the others with a new steering committee to hunt for “problems.” Who or what has brought this matter up for all this attention after all these 25 years since the mine closed up shop? I have not been aware that either the neighbors or the owners have been calling for this during all these years and I have not heard of any untold circumstances that would call for such a stir.

One of my sons, when still in school, worked for Bob Mandt one summer in an attempt to grow something on the tailings pile. While the growing was not very successful I recently found my son in very good health on his 50th birthday.

Mandt raised salmon in the mine pond until it proved to be uneconomical to do so but the water passed all the necessary tests and I have never heard of any problems from eating the salmon. One of his salmon became famous by being fed to the Queen of England in Boston when she arrived on her royal yacht with the tall ships parade in 1976. While she has problems with her job, it is to be noted that she is of ripe age and still healthy.

What then after all these years has triggered this sudden eruption of fear of the old mine? Is it the Environmental Protection Agency staff and are they running out of Superfund sites? Or is it the state Department of Environmental Policy looking for federal money? Or are there others stirring up the pudding for their own reasons? If the latter is indeed the case let’s get it out in the open, eliminate the guess work and vague scare tactics, and see if there is or is not a genuine problem.

Warren K. Colby lives in Harborside.