Workshops centered on the cleanup of the Lower Neponset River get underway in earnest this week, with the first of three set for Thursday evening in Milton. The session will be both in-person and virtual inside the Milton Council on Aging at 10 Walnut Street starting at 6:15.

The other workshops, both in-person and starting at 6:15, will take place in Mattapan on Tues., Nov. 15, inside the Mildred Avenue K-8 School, and in Hyde Park on Thurs., Nov. 17, at the BCYF Hyde Park Community Center on River Street.

The meetings will include an informal open house as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moves toward the work itself. Earlier this year, elected officials and EPA staffers announced that 3.7 miles of the Neponset had been listed as a national priority for cleanup as a Superfund site due to the elevated levels of man-made polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the sediment.

PCBs, chemicals manufactured between 1929 and 1979, were used in hydraulic fluid, lubricants, and construction materials such as caulk, sealants, and tiles.

The area of interest stretches from the Walter Baker Dam in Lower Mills to the “Mother Brook Confluence” by Hyde Park Avenue.

EPA officials are encouraging people to arrive ahead of the 6:15 p.m. start to maybe meet the state and federal employees who are involved in the cleanup.

Kelsey Dumville, community involvement coordinator for the EPA, said the meetings will outline what a Superfund site looks like and what the community can expect to see happen. The cleanup is a long, arduous process and it’s going to take some time, she said.

“Superfund” is shorthand for the cleanup efforts targeted at contaminated land across the country caused by environmental emergencies, oil spills, and natural disasters.

EPA representatives will be on hand at the workshops to meet local residents and offer ways for them to stay involved. “It’s important for the community to understand what we’re doing in their neighborhood and be comfortable with that,” Dumville said.

The Mother Brook area saw some cleanup under oversight from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection between 2007 and 2009. The state agency referred the Lower Neponset River to the EPA’s national priorities list for Superfund sites in 2015.

The EPA anticipates awarding a remedial investigation contract at the end of the year, with public comment on any proposed action in the cleanup tentatively scheduled for fall 2024.

Ian Cooke, executive director of the Neponset River Watershed Association, an advocacy group, said he has been impressed with by the EPA’s efforts to move the process along. “You can’t clean up a river like this in the abstract. You’ve got to get into the details,” he said. “It’s good that it’s happening now.”

Superfund cleanups can sometimes take 10 to 20 years, he noted. “We’re hoping in this case to see actual change on the ground, the river bottom as it were, within the next couple of years.”

The workshops will offer a chance for residents to get into details with the EPA as this significant construction project, gets underway.

“We have a number of questions about the timeline, about the scope of the assessment, what kind of analysis they’re going to do, that we’re going to be asking,” Cooke added. “We’re hopeful there will be a good turnout from the community. That’s always key.”