SANFORD -- Plans to build a Seminole County elementary school on land polluted with arsenic and other pesticides were dropped Tuesday when officials determined it would cost as much as $10 million to clean up the property east of Sanford.
After saying for months that locating a new Midway Elementary School on an abandoned University of Florida agricultural experimentation station would be "totally safe," officials quickly changed their tune Tuesday. They declared it too costly and too risky for students.
"Even if we were to put $10 million in it, there would always be that underlying question `Is it safe for kids?' " School Board member Dede Schaffner said.
Instead, the School Board quickly transferred its efforts to snagging a new site for the planned $11 million school, which was scheduled to open in the fall of 2006.
The board tentatively agreed Tuesday to purchase 36 acres from developers of Cameron Heights, a planned 1,100-home community off Celery Avenue, as the site for the school. The price for the property on Hughey Street is about $1.5 million.
The County Commission on Tuesday night tentatively approved a controversial land-use change for the development. That clears the way for the School Board to pay for the property by crediting education impact fees against the purchase price the developer would pay each time a house is built.
In addition to a new elementary school, the property is large enough for a new middle school as well, officials said.
On the School Board's behalf, Superintendent Bill Vogel lobbied the County Commission in favor of the development during the hearing Tuesday.
"This is an example of how we can all work together with the developers, County Commission and School Board to manage future growth," Vogel said.
Officials originally estimated an expense of about $300,000 to remove contaminated dirt from 15 acres at the agricultural station site. The state offered a free lease in a joint project planned by the school district and the County Commission, which plans a water-retention area and possibly a public park on the largest part of the 65 acres.
But George Kosmac, who became deputy superintendent of schools last month, said costs to remove pollution ran much higher when they were recalculated.
"It's not worth it," he said Tuesday, declaring the UF site is now out of the picture.
Kosmac said estimated costs for cleaning the property ranged from $1.9 million to $10 million. Much of the expense would be in disposing of the poisoned soil at the county dump near Geneva, he said.
The state is spending about $2 million locating toxic "hot spots" on the site and removing them. However, the Department of Environmental Protection, which declared the school district's plan to build on the site "alarming," recommended that the school system replace 2 feet of earth on the entire parcel to make it safe.
In addition to arsenic, tests turned up DDT, copper, toxaphene, dieldrin, chlordane and other dangerous pesticides on the property that was used for 70 years to test chemical applications on celery grown in nearby muck farms.
