An environmental group is questioning the way the federal government tested soil adjacent to Altama Elementary School to declare it safe from toxic pollution, putting the Glynn County Board of Education in a quandary over what to do.

There may be more toxaphene contamination at the site than tests indicate, said Daniel Parshley, project manager for the Glynn Environmental Coalition.

Parshley said there is a good chance that soil at the school contains unacceptable levels of toxaphene - a chemical compound manufactured as pesticide by Hercules Inc. in Brunswick from the late 1940s to the early 1980s.

Toxaphene, which the federal government says is carcinogenic, was banned in the United States in the 1980s.

"It's not that we're saying the school is contaminated, but we also can't just hope that it's not," Parshley said. "We need facts to know it's not."

While that school itself, at 5505 Altama Ave., Glynn County, was never part of an environmental cleanup site, land adjacent to it was. It was a Hercules dump site.

Parshley said the environmental coalition feels that the method the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to test the site is inaccurate.

"Toxaphene is made up of over 670 chemicals, all of which are toxic," Parshley said. "The test (method used by the EPA) only reported some of the chemicals that were there. There is a lot they just ignored."

The results, only recently released, were part of a second five-year review of the Superfund site behind the school conducted in May 2006. The EPA says the test determined that the levels of toxaphene present are acceptable and not dangerous.

Laura Niles, spokesperson for the EPA Region 4 Office in Atlanta, said the old test - the method used in the late 1990s - was the one that was questionable. She said the new test the EPA uses measures the component chemicals.

According to the EPA, an acceptable presence of toxaphene at the surface level of a site is three parts toxin per 1 million parts soil. The 2006 test showed levels that were well below that, Niles said.

"The method used (in 2006) also looks at breakdown products," she said.

That means the more than 670 chemical components of toxaphene are also detected by the test.

Those chemicals were also found to be below acceptable levels, Niles said.

The environmental coalition also would like to see the landfill site - behind the school's playground - tested again, as well as the school property itself.

Niles said the school property has never been tested because the EPA has never considered the school to be part of the Superfund site.

The Glynn County Board of Education now finds itself in the middle of the issue. The environmental coalition is calling for action on the board's part.

"All we have asked is that the board join us in requesting that the EPA re-test the site," Parshley said, adding that the coalition has submitted a letter to Schools Superintendent Michael Bull stating as much.

The school board has hired Jack Childs, an environmental attorney in Savannah, to help determine what action should be taken.

Mike Hulsey, vice chair of the school board, says the board takes the issue very seriously and wants to see it resolved.

"Our No. 1 concern is the safety of the students," Hulsey said.

"We have enlisted (Child's) services to be a liaison between the board and the EPA. Obviously we on the board of education are not the experts, so our goal is to get the best advice we can on what we need to do."

School board member Millard Allen said the board is willing to take whatever actions Childs recommends.

"What we need is some direction," Allen said. "What do we need to do? The question is, 'Who do you believe?' and what, if any, action should we take?"

The area behind the school property was put on the EPA's Superfund site list in 1984. Superfund sites are considered of national priority by the EPA for being known to have high levels of toxic material on them.

The Superfund site behind Altama Elementary was used as a landfill in the late 1970s by Hercules Inc., which deposited toxaphene there. The landfill was closed in 1980, and the manufacture of toxaphene was banned in 1982, when it was determined to be a highly dangerous toxin.

In subsequent years, the site behind the school was cleaned by the EPA and measures were taken to ensure all toxic material was contained safely.

A 30-year review plan was then put in place to ensure that the site remained safe. Every five years the site is supposed to be re-tested.