Tag: Turf Field Safety

>PJ,

I noticed that Laurie Goodman’s blog and the Ridgewood Patch both featured a report from REAC about the safety of the turf at Maple Park. The Patch even provided the report on its site. Goodman had a the link
(https://ridgewoodreac.com/SustainableFields.html). I spent some time over the weekend going through this report. It is the most informative and objective I have seen on the topic. There were a number of things that I found surprising. It basically shows that the people, who have been critical of artificial turf for environmental or safety reasons have been wrong, at least at Maple Park. I was shocked to learn that the design actually has benefits for the flood plain.

This report is very timely with the referendum vote tomorrow. Why didn’t you feature this report on your blog? This is the kind of information I would expect you to bring to our attention. You let us down on this one.

>California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and other law enforcement officials allege that three makers of artificial turf deliberately failed to disclose that their products contain lead.

By Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 4, 2008

SACRAMENTO — California’s attorney general wants to put a new spin on the old admonition “Don’t step on the grass!”

The warning could read “Don’t roll on the artificial turf” if Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and local law enforcement officials prevail in a lawsuit filed late Tuesday against three top makers of the green plastic playing fields and grasslike indoor-outdoor carpeting.

The complaint filed in Alameda County Superior Court alleges that the three manufacturers violated California’s Proposition 65 environmental law by knowingly failing to disclose that their products contain lead.

The lawsuit, which has been joined by Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and Solano County Dist. Atty. David W. Paulson, names Beaulieu Group of Georgia, AstroTurf of Georgia and FieldTurf USA Inc. of Florida.

All three companies said they were working with California officials to settle the lawsuit and stressed that their products were safe.

AstroTurf, an artificial-turf pioneer, said in a statement that it “has demonstrated its industry leadership by proactively developing new products that are below the most stringent standards for lead in consumer products.”

Joe Fields, chief executive of FieldTurf’s Canadian parent company, said that his artificial turf recently got a clean bill of health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Lead, which is used to give a natural green hue to the artificial turf, has been identified by state agencies as an ingredient that can cause cancer, damage to male and female reproductive systems, and birth defects in developing fetuses.

Children and other individuals can ingest harmful levels of lead by absorbing it through the skin or by rubbing the ersatz grass and then touching food or their mouths, the suit contends.

The state attorney general’s office said it found excessive lead levels in some of the artificial-turf samples tested from the three companies.

Although artificial turf presents little or no danger when it is new, lead levels rise to potentially harmful levels as it gets older, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Dennis A. Ragen, the state’s lead attorney on the lawsuit.

“As it ages, it forms more dust,” he said, and could contain levels of lead that are more than 20 times what’s allowed by Proposition 65.

The state, Ragen said, is negotiating with the three companies and is optimistic that a legal settlement can be reached that requires the products to be reformulated so that no lead is used in the manufacturing.

Most companies targeted by Proposition 65, known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, are eager to change their products rather than be forced to sell them with a warning that they contain chemicals “known to the state of California” to cause cancer or birth defects.

“The bottom line is this is 2008. Why are you making something with lead deliberately put into it?” Ragen said. “You need to find some substitute to make the color stable.”

Beaulieu attorney Peter Farley says he hopes to reach a friendly settlement with California. He stressed, however, that his company makes only an indoor-outdoor type of product and does not sell artificial turf used on athletic fields and stadiums.

The state decided to take action against the three companies after it received a legal notice from an advocacy group, the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health, that it intended to file a private lawsuit on the lead warning issue against Beaulieu and other artificial-turf manufacturers.

“Our testing on products from dozens of companies shows that artificial turf can contain high amounts of lead that can easily come off onto children’s hands when they play on turf fields,” said Michael Green, the center’s executive director.

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

>Sunday, June 22, 2008

By MIKE KELLY

RECORD COLUMNIST

CDC instructions advise all who set a toe on one of these fields to remove all clothing as soon as possible.

Mike Kelly is a Record columnist. Contact him at kellym@northjersey.com.

WE LIVE in wondrous times. We no longer need real grass for football, soccer, baseball and lacrosse. We have artificial turf, made from plastic, nylon and ground-up car and truck tires.

But now we worry.

Recent tests on fake turf fields at four high schools in northern New Jersey revealed high levels of lead. And now comes a truly wondrous message from the federal government – actually a special advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC advisory, which was released late last week, is actually a set of instructions for anyone who uses an artificial turf field. Pay attention to the vocabulary here. In this bizarre debate, vocabulary is perhaps the only thing worth laughing about.

At the top of the list of CDC instructions is this: Anyone who steps onto a fake field should wash “aggressively” afterwards.

Yes, you read that right: Wash aggressively. No more quick showers to save water. If you play, you get sprayed, the advisory says.

It doesn’t matter if you have spent three hours kicking a soccer ball or five minutes throwing a coach’s temper tantrum. If you step on that plastic turf, you need to wash your mouth – and everything else – with some serious soap and water for at least 20 seconds on all exposed body parts.

But that’s not all.

Remove your clothing

The instructions ask all athletes – and anyone else who sets a toe on one of these fields – to remove all clothing as soon as possible.

Naked soccer? Lacrosse au naturel? Baseball in the buff?

The possibilities are endless.

But the instructions don’t end there. The CDC recommends that all sports uniforms worn on fake fields should be turned inside out to avoid spreading “dust.”

Apparently, the uniforms tend to get coated with ground-up bits of tires and other “artificial” items that are dangerous to your health and wardrobe.

But again, that’s not all.

The final instruction is this: All clothing worn on an artificial field should be washed separately from other items. Besides the “delicate” cycle on washing machines, maybe now we need the “fake turf” cycle.

In other words, the CDC wasn’t kidding when it advised athletes and others to wash aggressively.

They’re not laughing, either.

Indeed, this is no laughing matter. But the story of the growth of artificial athletic fields is full of irony.

From town recreation fields in Franklin Lakes, Wayne and Fort Lee to more than two dozen public and private high schools across northern New Jersey, artificial turf fields are a growing trend. But here’s the irony: Many of these fields – especially those built for municipal parks – were funded by state Green Acres grants.

That’s right, money, set aside by state law, to preserve New Jersey’s natural environment was used to buy a fake environment.

Buy first, test later

But perhaps the most outrageous piece of irony is this: Scientists knew that artificial turf fields might cause health and environmental problems. But in the rush for improved athletic and recreational facilities – and use of those Green Acres dollars — far too many bureaucrats opted to install the fake fields first, then test for hazards later.

So last week, we learned that the lead content of the fake turf at Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes was six times the state standard and the lead content of the Indian Hills High School field in Oakland was seven times higher. The fields will be closed during summer, school authorities said.

“We’re not going to be using either of our fields until we complete further testing,” said Paul Saxton, the superintendent for the Ramapo Indian Hills school district.

But testing is one thing. What if those additional tests confirm high lead levels? What then? Remove the fake turf and start over? And who pays for this?

Fake fields, by the way, don’t come cheap. A basic soccer and football field goes for around $2 million.

The news of high lead levels at the Ramapo and Indian Hills high schools comes on the heels of similar revelations at the Northern Valley Regional High School District’s artificial fields in Old Tappan and in Demarest. Initially, the district considered canceling graduation ceremonies, scheduled for the fields.

But other tests revealed “acceptable” lead levels. How comforting.

Meanwhile, a group called the Synthetic Turf Council issued a statement in praise of the new tests.

“Our industry is proud of its unblemished record of human health and environmental safety,” the council said.

Really now. The same statement underscored the inherent paradox of these fake turf fields. “Lead chromate has been used in a number of synthetic turf fields,” the council acknowledged.

But then the council said we should not be worried. “Lead chromate’s extremely low bioavailability prevents it from being readily absorbed by the human body,” the statement said.

But if lead chromate is so safe, why does the New Jersey Department of Health suggest that children under age 7 be prohibited from playing on fields with high lead levels?

That sort of question never seems to be answered. The state continues to find high levels of lead in artificial turf, but the fake turf manufacturers and their lobbyists claim we shouldn’t worry.

Comforting, isn’t it?

>You are sadly misinformed. The flooding in Maple Field this spring left that field far better off than it would have been if it had still been natural grass. Where do you get your info, anyway? Didn’t mommy teach you not to listen to rumors? Get the facts, jack!

Let’s go back a few months, to a very informative post on April 19, 2007, on this blog:

“Last weekend NJ had the highest recorded rainfall over 48 hours in over 120 years…more than hurricane Floyd. The RFD has pumped out 180 basements and has 100 to go. Apparently there has only been one heavier rainfall in a 48 hour period since records have been kept on such things.The result was that every field in Ridgewood’s flood plain (Maple, Stevens, RHS, Stevens, Vets and Brookside) was heavily flooded. In some cases, like at Stevens, the newly deposited clay on the baseball diamonds was completely washed away. As happened in hurricane Floyd, large amounts of debris and a heavy layer of silt/mud was deposited on the fields, particularly Maple, Stevens and Vets. If not for the debris and silt, Maple was dry enough for play on Tuesday. Brookside may not be dry enough to play on for 2-3 weeks. Stevens, Vets and RHS will probably not be dry enough until sometime next week. The bigger problem is the silt that was deposited on the fields. After hurricane Floyd, the mud on the fields could not be removed and it killed the grass. In the case of Maple, the field was scraped down below the roots and resodded at the expense of approximately $25,000 (just for Maple). The field was then closed for several months to allow the sod to take root, thus eliminating a full season of play. Reportedly, this is exactly what is being considered for parts of Vets and Stevens. It would also have been considered at Maple, if the field was still grass.Fortunately, this time the mud can be removed from Maple because of the synthetic surface. The rubber and sand infill did not wash away in the storm. However, in the worst case scenario, a small amount of the infill may be removed with the mud and silt. If this is the happens, the infill is inexpensive and can easily be replaced in a day or two of grooming. Thus, while this storm was as bad as it could have been and will require some clean up, it did not result in any permanent damage to Maple Field. Nor was any of the landscaping around the park damaged. Maple field will be back in use weeks before the other fields affected.”

As another poster said on that day,
“…it is becoming more and more clear that we need more turf fields in town.” Hear hear. All you “fiscally responsible” folks — artificial turf, like that at Maple, is the way to go. What a success that field renovation has been!