diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ea330ecb1f..1dd07d8ab7 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -205,7 +205,7 @@ etl-unittest:
 etl-metadatatest:
 	docker-compose run --rm bigmetadata /bin/bash -c \
 	  'while : ; do pg_isready -t 1 && break; done && \
-	  PGDATABASE=test nosetests -v \
+	  TEST_MODULE=tasks.$(MODULE) PGDATABASE=test nosetests -v \
 	    tests/test_metadata.py'
 
 travis-etl-unittest:
diff --git a/tests/test_metadata.py b/tests/test_metadata.py
index 072270aa8c..0ceff1b801 100644
--- a/tests/test_metadata.py
+++ b/tests/test_metadata.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from tests.util import runtask, setup, teardown, collect_tasks
 
 from tasks.util import TableTask
+
 # Monkeypatch TableTask
 TableTask._test = True
 
@@ -12,25 +13,6 @@
 from nose.tools import assert_greater, with_setup
 
 
-# {
-#   'geo': ['state', 'zcta', 'tract'],
-#   'table': ['B01', 'B02', 'B03', 'B04']
-# }
-
-# [{'geo': 'state', 'table': 'B01'},
-#  {'geo': 'zcta',  'table': 'B01'},
-#  {'geo': 'tract', 'table': 'B01'},
-#  {'geo': 'state', 'table': 'B02'},
-#  {'geo': 'zcta',  'table': 'B02'},
-#  {'geo': 'tract', 'table': 'B02'},
-#  {'geo': 'state', 'table': 'B03'},
-#  {'geo': 'zcta',  'table': 'B03'},
-#  {'geo': 'tract', 'table': 'B03'},
-#  {'geo': 'state', 'table': 'B04'},
-#  {'geo': 'zcta',  'table': 'B04'},
-#  {'geo': 'tract', 'table': 'B04'}]
-
-
 def cross(orig_list, b_name, b_list):
     result = []
     for orig_dict in orig_list:
diff --git a/tests/util.py b/tests/util.py
index 41bcfa658f..15c298af9f 100644
--- a/tests/util.py
+++ b/tests/util.py
@@ -112,8 +112,11 @@ def collect_tasks(TaskClass):
     Returns a set of task classes whose parent is the passed `TaskClass`
     '''
     tasks = set()
+    test_module = os.environ.get('TEST_MODULE', '').replace('.', os.path.sep)
     for dirpath, _, files in os.walk('tasks'):
         for filename in files:
+            if not os.path.join(dirpath, filename).startswith(test_module):
+                continue
             if filename.endswith('.py'):
                 modulename = '.'.join([
                     dirpath.replace(os.path.sep, '.'),