KEYSTONE — Testing by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection confirmed land Clearwater owns along Patterson Road bordering Silver Dollar Shooters Club is contaminated with lead, arsenic and antimony.
Equity Lifestyle Properties, a multi-billion dollar mobile home community developer and owner of the shooting club, was the winning bidder April 5 to buy Clearwater’s 425 acres of pasture for $6.4 million.
Representatives with Equity Lifestyle did not respond to a request for comment.
DEP collected two surface water samples and four soil samples Feb. 20 on Clearwater’s property just east of the shooting range.
Sam Upchurch, a geologist and former vice president of earth sciences firm Sdii Global in Tampa, said remediation can include excavating and dumping soil in a landfill or injecting fluid in the earth that binds to contaminants so they can be pulled out.
Because there are no production wells near the property, Warren Hogg, water use permitting manager for Tampa Bay Water, said contamination of the underlying Floridan Aquifer is unlikely.
Equity Lifestyle moved to buy Clearwater’s property after the city had spent more than a year working to finalize a sale to Hillsborough’s Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program.
ELAPP acquisition manager Kurt Gremley said the county had concerns about taking on the 20 acres bordering the shooting range because of concerns about contamination from stray bullets.
Equity Lifestyle needed only about 20 acres of Clearwater’s property to resolve zoning violations in the adjacent shooting range.
Because Clearwater would only sell the 425 acres as one piece, the company bid on the entire property.