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The S.C. Department of Environmental Services, which told a citizen that it would cost him $2.4 million to obtain public records, has now abandoned the plan and will give him the records about school pollution at no cost.

An email obtained by The State newspaper said that due to confusion about the Freedom of Information Act request, the agency has decided not to charge the Darlington County resident for providing records of soil contamination at Black Creek Elementary School.

The Charleston newspaper, the Post and Courier, reported Saturday in an editorial critical of the agency that the department had backed off the plan and will give the man the records. The State newspaper received a copy of an email provided to Charleston’s editorial staff.

Department of Environmental Services spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment from The State, after facing substantial criticism this past week over the proposed $2.4 million records charge.

Open records advocates and people trying to learn more about forever chemical pollution at the school blasted the agency for trying to charge high prices for records that by law should be publicly available.

In a July 17 response to Brady Hill’s request, the department said it would cost $2.4 million to fulfill the request because the agency would have to provide more than 3 million records. The department said it needed a deposit of $605,000 to even process the request.

The $2.4 million is believed to be one of the highest proposed charges to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request in state history. Environmental Services said it had never charged that much.

Agency officials attempted to justify the charge by saying the request was not specific enough. But Hill said the request focused only on the school contamination.

A review of the request by The State newspaper verified that, showing that the records he sought included laboratory test data, soil sample analysis reports and other material “collected from the grounds, playground dirt and athletic fields of Black Creek Elementary School in Darlington County.’’

After The State asked about the charges Monday July 20, the department said it would not cost Hill $2.4 million. But it did not reveal until late this past week that it would drop all costs for the open records request.

While getting the records at no charge is good for Hill’s pocketbook, he said the agency’s actions have been frustrating.

HIll, a Darlington County Council candidate who has been critical of the agency’s response to the growing threat of forever chemicals in his community, said the department appeared more interested in protecting its image than helping him.

He was unaware the costs were being dropped until informed by The State on Friday July 24. Hill said a staff member told him Friday July 17 that the department would work something out, but did not say the information would be provided at no cost.

“I think they are worried more about the media than they are me because they haven’t told me that,’’ HIll said. ‘’It’s been a week and I haven’t even heard anything back like ‘We’re on it or working on it’. Nothing.’’

At issue are records of contamination found at Black Creek Elementary, a new school that sits on a parcel of land once approved as a sludge disposal site for a polluting industry.

Recent testing of soil at the school found forever chemical pollution on playgrounds, but the Department of Environmental Services downplayed the threat, saying there was no need for immediate action. Hill sought records to learn more about the levels of pollution and the agency’s reasoning.

Black Creek Elementary School, which has about 700 students, was built on a former agricultural site that received waste sludge from the now abandoned Galey and Lord textile factory. The sludge was at one time thought to be good for plant growth, but it was later also found to contain a cocktail of pollutants, including toxic forever chemicals that are linked to cancer and other ailments.

Galey and Lord, a notoriously polluted industrial site that is now on the federal Superfund priority list for cleanup, was approved by the South Carolina environmental department to spread the plant’s waste sludge on up to 10,000 acres of farm fields in Darlington and nearby counties from the early 1990s until 2013, The State has previously reported.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently trying to determine whether to expand the Superfund site to include some or all of the 10,000 acres.

Soil on some of the property is polluted with forever chemicals and the toxins have been found in scores of drinking water wells on and near farms. Researchers from Yale University recently found forever chemicals in a farmer’s crops.

Critics in the farming-rich Pee Dee of eastern South Carolina have said state and federal agencies have been slow responding to the problem. The Department of Environmental Services has also been criticized for threatening to sue Darlington County farmer Robbie O’Neal for distributing signs about a public meeting that used the department’s logo.

State Sen. J.D. Chaplin, R-Darlington, said the issue of forever chemical pollution on farmland is a concern and people want to know more about it. He said the Department of Environmental Services erred in responding to Hill’s open records request for data about Black Creek Elementary.

“It sounds as if somebody at the Department of Environmental Services has made a small mistake, and I’m glad they’re going to rectify it,’’ said Hill, who lives in the area where Galey and Lord sludge was applied. “Under no circumstances is a $2.4 million bill acceptable.’’

This story was originally published July 25, 2026 at 9:40 AM.

An eastern South Carolina school district has turned down a request to let Yale University researchers test the soil at an elementary school to determine whether unsafe levels of pollution exist in the dirt.

The Darlington County School District says a state agency has already tested the soil of playgrounds and determined that children are safe, even though state officials recently found chemicals in the dirt.

But the request to allow Yale to check the soil at Black Creek Elementary School could have verified those findings — or let people know whether a greater problem exists than first discovered, critics said this week.

Researchers from Yale already are testing the soil of farmland in Darlington County to determine if toxic forever chemicals exist in the earth where crops are grown. They’re expected in the area the week of August 17.

“This was free testing by an independent group that had nothing to gain,’’ said Brady Hill, a County Council candidate and septic tank installer who is pushing for more testing. Hill asked the district to allow the testing by Yale.

‘It was a great opportunity,’’ he continued. “I think the (school district) made a mistake. They could have verified what had been done, or if things were found the other way, it is going to protect the district from future potential lawsuits.’’

The issue revolves around the application of industrial sludge on farmland from the early 1990s to 2013 in Darlington and adjacent counties for use as fertilizer. The land on which the school was built once was a farm field where sludge was applied, records show.

The use of sludge from the Galey and Lord textile factory had been initially encouraged by state and federal agencies as a way to get rid of waste while enriching the soil and crops on farmers’ land. But it was later found to contain industrial toxins, including forever chemicals, a set of compounds of growing concern that can cause cancer. In addition to cancer, forever chemicals can cause immune system deficiencies, thyroid problems and other ailments.

Previous tests by government agencies and Yale researchers have found that some agricultural land, crops and drinking water in the area near sludge fields are polluted with forever chemicals like those embedded in the toxic gunk spread on land decades ago.

Yale researcher Jake Thompson said the university would have gladly tested the soil at Black Creek Elementary, but it can’t do that without district permission.

“We would do it at no cost,’’ Thompson said. “It’s minimally invasive.’’ He said state or local officials could “point out where the sludge was spread and where they wanted to test, and I could get those samples.’’

He said it’s possible the university’s test results would not be any different than what the Department of Environmental Services found while testing the school grounds earlier this year. But it’s worth taking a look, he said.

Researchers at Yale are among scientists at the forefront of studying how PFAS affects land and people’s health in the United States. Thompson is an environmental engineer with the university’s Center for Natural Carbon Capture. He’s putting together a report on his findings of PFAS on the landscape as part of an effort to develop solutions to the problem.

In South Carolina, testing done by the Department of Environmental Services found the amounts of some forever chemicals exceeded certain federal levels, but officials said follow-up risk assessment reports by the state and federal government determined there was no cause for immediate concern. The state agency did advise the district to take steps to cover the playground, as a precaution.

Audrey Childers, a spokeswoman for the Darlington County School District, said there is no need to test anymore at Black Creek Elementary. The school property is safe and scientists don’t need to “disrupt the school,’’ she said. She said all the raw data compiled by state and federal agencies on the property is online and available for public inspection.

“We are focused on the business at hand, which is educating these students to the best of our ability,’’ Childers said. An email she sent Tuesday to Hill said “DES and EPA determined that the findings do not present a risk to students or staff.’’

In an email Wednesday, the SC. Department of Environmental Services said it’s the district’s call on whether to grant Yale access to the elementary school land. The department said its testing and conclusions are scientifically sound.

Still, the email said the environmental agency “is always supportive of academic studies on any environmental issue, especially those that help the scientific community at-large to learn more about emerging contaminants.’’

The district’s decision not to give Yale access to test the soil comes as some parents are raising concerns about the possible danger of forever chemicals to students. Some interviewed by The State say they’d like to hear more from the school district.

Danah McPhail, who pulled her children out of Black Creek Elementary because of contamination concerns, questioned whether the district wants to keep information at a minimum in hopes that the issue will go away.

“I feel like they knew about this when they built the school; they don’t want further testing,’’ said McPhail, who has been vocal on social media with her concerns.

Black Creek Elementary School, which has about 700 students, opened in the fall of 2025.

The district paid $1.6 million in 2022 for the land where the school was built, several years after federal officials raised concerns about forever chemicals in farmland from the Galey and Lord plant.

But a consultant it hired to check for contamination did not identify unsafe forever chemicals on the property, The State newspaper reported earlier this year.

The State newspaper, consultants for a Chesterfield County property owner and a local farmer determined last spring that Galey and Lord sludge had been spread on the land where the school was built. The finding was based on state land application records for the Galey and Lord sludge. The Department of Environmental Services acknowledged in March that 91 tons of the company’s sludge were spread on part of the future school property on three different occasions: 1998, 2001 and 2006.

Galey and Lord’s impact on farmland in Darlington County, a mostly rural area about 80 miles east of Columbia, is a major concern. The Department of Health and Environmental Control, the forerunner of the Department of Environmental Services, approved spreading Galey and Lord sludge on more than 300 farm fields on about 10,000 acres from early 1990s to 2013.

Yale’s testing has found forever chemical pollution in the dirt of about 15 farm fields, as well as in some of the crops farmers grow, including collards people eat and hay eaten by cows that are later sold for beef.

Previously, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and DHEC documented elevated levels of forever chemicals in the soil of three farm fields, including one across the street from a group of families whose wells were contaminated with forever chemicals like those contained in Galey and Lord sludge.

Galey and Lord, which is in Society Hill about 15 miles from Darlington in South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, is an abandoned plant that closed in 2016 Today, its owners are gone and the site is so polluted the federal government has declared it a Superfund site, making Galey and Lord a priority nationally for cleanup. The U.S. EPA is considering expanding the Superfund area to include farmfields.

Farmer Robbie O’Neal, perhaps the most outspoken person in Darlington County about the problem, said he’s disappointed in the school district’s decision not to allow Yale to test at Black Creek Elementary for forever chemicals, formally known as PFAS. Soil, some crops and wells on the O’Neal farm have shown PFAS contamination.

“I’m really upset about it,’’ O’Neal said, noting that the school district “should do this testing to make sure the children are protected. They made the decision not to. They can change their mind if they want to.’’