Florida is one of only eight states in the nation with a school siting law that requires districts to test for hazardous contamination, and prohibits schools from being constructed near major highways. The school in the following case study fails seven Florida statutes for school siting.
Brown-Barge Middle School first opened its doors in 1955 as an African-American elementary school. After decades of varied use and vacancy, Brown-Barge is now one of the region's leading magnet schools. The school sits just a short distance from two federal Superfund Sites, the Escambia Wood Treating Company and the Agrico Chemical Company, where utility pole preservation operations and the manufacture of sulfuric acid and fertilizer left a toxic legacy to residents of the surrounding neighborhood that includes contaminated surface soil, groundwater and drinking water. Contamination levels were so high around the two sites that 358 neighboring families were relocated in 1998, after a five-year struggle by the local community.
Recent samples taken from the Brown-Barge property found dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals ever tested, to be twice as high, arsenic to be 4 to 18 times higher, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) to be 87 times higher than state residential exposure standards. The PAH levels were twice as high as those found on the Agrico Chemical Superfund site. Several of these chemicals are known carcinogens that move through surface water runoff and wind-carried soil.
Many former students, now in their fifties and sixties, recount brushing yellow powder off their chairs and desks; the settling of clouds of sulfuric acid from Agrico Chemical. Recent graduates report autoimmune system, respiratory, skin and reproductive problems, they believe are caused by exposure to arsenic. Several have recounted severe skin rashes from contact with the school’s sports fields or wading in water after a heavy rain.
In 2004, a portion of the school’s property was purchased for a major highway project. Tests conduct by the Department of Transportation found high levels of PAH’s and arsenic directly in front of the school, but they proceeded with the work anyway. Chemical laden dust clouds the school grounds during class and after school activities.
Panther Parents Against Pollution (PPAP) organized in 2004 to win school relocation. At a meeting with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the local school district, officials tried to calm parents' concerns by attributing the dioxin contamination found in 19 on-site samples to “contaminated potting soil brought in by a parent” and to “roof tar.” The community asserted that the contamination was too widespread and too toxic to be disregarded so simply, maintaining that the widespread contamination and high toxicity of the chemicals found at Brown-Barge were from the neighboring Superfund sites, a link the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) was not willing to make. The FDOH report attempted to further minimize the public's concerns by reporting that the risk to children of getting a non-cancer illness was “low” because they were not going to be “eating” the soil.
Several scientists, concerned that students, teachers, administrators and others are being continually exposed to unacceptable levels of PAH compounds, dioxins, and other substances found at the site, have recommended closing the school and cleaning up the contamination. Pensacola officials contend that although toxics on the site are a problem, it does not warrant school relocation.
PPAP, former students and Citizen’s Against Toxic Exposure (CATE), the community group responsible for winning relocation of the surrounding neighborhood, continue to struggle to win a safe school site for the children of the Brown barge Middle school (Rowan, 2005).