HOUGHTON, Mich. (WZMQ) – After years in the making, the Keweenaw Waters Resort officially opened its 89 campsites and storefront on Tuesday.
Owner Derek Bradway and his team successfully revitalized the 25 acres of land, once used for copper smelter tailings. Along with its nearby cabins, the resort was created with Upper Peninsula lumber and built by local contractors.
“We’ve been able to repurpose and reuse a place that that really had been neglected for a long time,” said Bradway. “We did it with a lot of local material, with a bunch of local families all jumping in to make it happen.”
Since the 1800’s, the river side property was part of the Torch Lake Superfund Site, as a large plot of significant contamination.
“On the water, they would have these smelting sites to refine the copper before it was shipped off,” explained Jesse Wiederhold of Visit Keweenaw. “So, when that died out, a lot of materials were left around by then.”
By the 1980s, the property was listed on the National Priorities List (NPL) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), before the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) worked with the EPA to cleanup the site and remove it from the list.
Over the past three and a half years, waste from the site has been replaced with over eight feet of engineered soil and natural vegetation, creating a safe place to recreate.
“What happens like in this case, you have somebody like Derek, who is a local entrepreneur who has a big vision,” said the Director of Michigan EGLE, Phil Roos. “It’s that combination of the local vision and state and federal cooperation and a little bit of funding to make that happen.”
The new campground features a swimming lake, fishing dock, kayak rentals, a playground, and more, with more cabins set to be complete over the next few years. The site sets an example for the opportunities that can grow, even through instances of environmental turmoil.
In opening the campground, the Keweenaw Waters Resort also looks to benefit the local economy by adding millions in annual tourist revenue.
