A multi-million dollar school set to be built near a contaminated site is at the center of controversy in a small Florida community, raising issues of environmental injustice.

State bureaucrats recently greenlighted construction of the school on a non-contaminated portion of arsenic-tainted farmland near the town of Sanford, Fla. Florida state law requires proof that prospective school sites are “safe”—there are no such requirements for housing developments built on agricultural lands which are largely exempt from contaminant cleanup laws.

Representatives from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) say that prohibiting the use of groundwater on half the larger parcel and removing contaminated soil discovered through spot tests of the property should provide sufficient safeguards, adding that additional testing would be too expensive.

Tom Lubozynski, an FDEP administrator, told the Orlando Sentinel that “if you want 100 percent assurance” that the entire parcel of property is safe, then the answer is “no.”

However, the Seminole County School Board is currently finalizing plans to purchase the property for an elementary school in the community of Midway, a predominantly black and poor neighborhood. Construction would begin later this year. After running tests on nine areas of the large parcel, FDEP discovered soil contamination above appropriate levels in two areas and contaminated groundwater exceeding state standards in three areas.  The contaminated soil is being removed, and groundwater use at half the parcel is being prohibited.

While some local residents are on board, a few are worried that the arsenic contamination will harm students.

“It frightens me that they would even consider putting a new school on this kind of land,” said Maggie McCarthy, chairwoman of the Midway Elementary school advisory council. McCarthy claims she was shut out of meetings with the county superintendent and school board.

Tallahassee resident and area native Tara Hall believes that local residents are being taken advantage of because many of them are low-income and black. She told the Sentinel that parents in more affluent parts of the county would not accept a school erected on contaminated ground.

“It doesn’t give me any confidence that they have spoken to a few local black people and they are on board,” Hall said.

The $15 million school is set to open in 2009.