If the Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education cannot locate a different site in the township for its new middle school, then it should clean up all of the contaminated soil on the Ellisdale Road site. The Board of Education should err on the side of caution for community children and others who will use the new facility.

The school district has discovered arsenic and dieldrin pollution at the site. Both are highly poisonous neurotoxins. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, long-term exposure to both contaminants can cause cancer, birth defects, brain and central nervous system damage, anxiety and depression. Why risk exposing people to these debilitating diseases?

Why risk spending money to cap the soil under the roadways at the site now and having to pay for a complete cleanup in the future? That's what happened in North Brunswick in Middlesex County, where the Board of Education built a school on contaminated soil in the '80s. That board also decided to cap the contamination under the roadways. Then, just a few years ago, when the school district decided to expand the high school, the contamination was rediscovered. The district had to pay for remediation twice. Also, during the excavation, levels of arsenic - which was one of the contaminants - showed up in dust tests inside the school building, which put kids in jeopardy.

According to Wendy Heiger-Bernays, an assistant professor of environmental health at Boston University's School of Public Health, volatile organic compounds (gases emitted from substances such as paint, pesticides and cleaning supplies) can migrate from under the building and penetrate indoor space and groundwater.

If the Upper Freehold Regional school board caps the waste at the site, it will have to maintain the cap and monitor the groundwater and indoor air quality of the school, which will also be time consuming and costly. And, what will happen if a school budget doesn't pass one year? Will the maintenance program be spared? The situation could get even more costly if someone down the road decides to sue the school district because he or she feels health complications are due to contamination located at the school site.

That's happening in North Brunswick right now. The wife of a board member claims that she was diagnosed with cancer as a result of the contamination found at North Brunswick High School. Although the board contends that there has never been a health risk to the general public, if a judge determines that there was, the school district will have to pay and will have left itself open to all kinds of other lawsuits.

So, we ask, why risk having to spend so much of the school district's time and resources in the future for something that it can rectify in the present?

With all the media coverage this issue has already been getting, who is going to want to send their children to this school? Who is going to want to work there? The board is going to have to do a lot of convincing, no matter what method it chooses for remediation. But if local developers have to completely remove contaminated soils from their properties before developing, the same standards should be applied to the school site.

We applaud Upper Freehold township officials who have spoken out against the board's plan. Mayor Stephen Fleischacker has urged residents to get involved and has said that money should not be the concern here.

Deputy Mayor William Miscoski said he would rather be buried by a bulldozer at the site than have the new school built on the contamination. Since, above all, capping the contamination could put the welfare of children at risk, we would like to be buried right there alongside of him if the board decides not to change its remediation plan.