The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says everything is OK, that the contamination from the former Hercules Superfund site should not be posing any problem. Members of the Glynn Environmental Coalition disagree with that assessment and note that the soil at the school is not part of the federal government's 30-year review program. That's true, the federal agency acknowledges. It's job is to test the actual site, not anything within the drainage path of it.

OK, so that leaves the community with this unanswered question: what, if any, impact has toxaphene - a known carcinogen that is no longer legal to produce in this country, according to the federal government - had on Altama Elementary, on the people who work there and go to school there? And is any threat in the past still a threat today and, if so, just how much of a threat is it?

Chances are good that the impact, whatever it was or is, is negligible or somewhere in close proximity of negligible, but the only way to know that for sure is to actually test the ground. Glynn County's children attend that school and everything that can be done should be done to make sure it is a safe environment. The community expects nothing more, nothing less.

The responsibility, of course, rests with the Glynn County Board of Education.

Instead of guessing, the board should do whatever is necessary to get an accurate answer to the question.