Lawsuit: Developers built Lakeland homes on radioactive land

LAKELAND (FOX 13) - Some of Lakeland's nicest homes may be sitting on contaminated soil.

A new class action lawsuit says that the level of radioactivity in some areas of The Grassland, Oakbridge and the Towncenter at Lakeside Village is up to five times higher than what it should be.

Lauren Parkes, a resident of Towncenter, is now worried about hr 10-year-old son.

"You want to protect him," she told FOX 13. "Should we get checked out? That's important to us."

The lawsuit wants the developer, the Drummond Company, out of Alabama, to do three things: reduce the level of radioactivity, medically monitor the residents, and pay damages in excess of $75,000.

"Gamma radiation is known to cause leukemia, bone cancer," said Rick Meadow, one of the attorneys on the case. " So there could be clusters of cancer. We don't know that yet. But there is an increased risk we believe."

There are hundreds of homes, several businesses and a golf course sitting on the area in question.

Drummond bought the property, close to 1,400 acres, in the late 70s when it was a working phosphate mine. Several years later, the company developed the property.

"So they were in the best position to know that these properties could be contaminated, and they did not warn anybody," said Meadow.

FOX 13 reached out to Drummond for comment, but the company did not return our calls.