The Kids Speak Out
We included S.A. Councilman Ford Greene's response at the end.
Artificial turf harbors potential health risks, including cancer
Opinion: Editorial,
Volume LVIII (58),
Volume 58: Issue 1
“Turf Wars.” “S.F. debating artificial turf on playgrounds.” “Many questions, few answers about artificial turf.”
These are just a few headlines from publications across the country regarding the proliferation of artificial turf fields in public schools and other community hubs.
Naturally, the articles that matched up with these headlines raised concerns among parents of high school students. Worrying that the fields were unsafe because of newspaper stories warning the public about possible health risks posed to athletes, schools on the east coast began to remove the artificial fields.
However, the fields’ flat surfaces are coveted by our athletic department. With a traditional grass field, the surface could never be flat because there are not enough staffers in our maintenance department to concentrate on grooming the field, says Athletic Director Chad Stuart. The turf fields reduce serious injury to athletes and retain more water than regular grass, according to Stuart. This allows games to be played in the rain so game schedules aren’t scrambled based on the weather.
Our fields were installed by FieldTurf, a company based in Montreal. Stuart maintains that our fields are perfectly safe to play on. He referred the Jolly Roger to a press release sent out to schools by the turf manufacturers. He says that the district researched potential problems that could have surfaced as a result of the fields before installing them.
However, science teacher Barton Clark says that the District conducted their research simply by phoning the manufacturer of the fields. Clearly, that was not the right way to gauge the safety of the fields.
Though the District presumably doesn’t realize it, when our fields heat up they become dangerous. Science teachers Clark and Sue Fox say they have smelled gas rising from the field on hot days.
The off-gassing occurs because of those irritating tire crumbs that inevitably wind up in our shoes after P.E. or sports practices. They may be merely viewed as a nuisance, but the gasses they release are carcinogens, according to National Geographic’s online green guide (which referred to any playground or field materials made from recycled tires). Carcinogens are chemicals that cause cancer.
Turf fields may have been an excellent way to dispose of our used car tires (which were only ever meant to be under our vehicles) if the chemicals used to make the tires were safe for humans to be exposed to. Ground-up tires release 49 different chemicals as they age and are exposed to heat, seven of which are proven carcinogens, according to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).
Though the fact that we inhale these carcinogens on hot days may not affect us now, in 30 years it could become a problem. Prolonged or excessive exposure to the off-gasses could potentially cause cancer. This cancer may not show up the next day, but the danger of the fields should be recognized by the school district and should not be downplayed by corporations with vested interest in selling their product.
We propose that the district recognize the danger and keep students off the fields when they heat up and release these hazardous fumes. P.E. classes could conduct units that require use of the fields during colder months and athletes could move practices elsewhere or to later in the day.
Unfortunately, our district is currently installing another artificial field in the area behind Safeway, which was formerly a dog park. The Tam Union High School District schools will have priority to use the field, but Stuart expects that there will be time for community members to access it as well. The restrictions for the usage of turf fields on campus should also be applied to the new community field as well.
Chemicals used to manufacture tires are undoubtedly dangerous, but there is a safer way to dispose of our old tires. They can be mixed into asphalt, which according to the State of Arizona Department of Transportation provides an especially smooth riding surface and helps with highway noise reduction. We believe we should put old tires where they belong: back under our cars.
Reader Comments (1)
Good job on your opinion piece. As a member of the San Anselmo Town Council, I was the sole vote against the installation of FieldTurf as the proposed playing surface for the former dog park behind Safeway at Red Hill. When reviewing the packet of materials that Town staff submitted to the Council for consideration of the issue, I was surprised that our staff failed to include or even mention the report on the health hazards arising from the construction of playing field surfaces from recycled tires that California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published in January 2007, which your piece references. (http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Publications/Tires/62206013.pdf ).
As you accurately note, that report found that materials derived from recycled tires implicate 49 chemicals of which several are known carcinogens, but that one time ingestions thereof are thought to pose no health risk (who plays on a field just once?).
In contrast, and apparently following the lead of the Tamalpais School District, town staff provided the Council with a substantial amount of quasi-scientific propaganda (written material that looks scientific but which includes no citations or references by which its one-sided conclusions can be double-checked or verified) that is distributed by the recycled-tire trade organization called the Synthetic Turf Council.
It is worth noting the California Attorney General has sued Field Turf, along with other manufacturers of synthetic turf, because it has failed to disclose that it contains lead, a cause of cancer, reproductive system damage and birth defects. (see http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-turf4-2008sep04,0,439850.story)
Synthetic turf not only poses health risks to humans, but also to the steelhead salmon, the endangered species which inhabit the Corte Madera Creek, into which the poison from the artificial turf drains in the rainy season.
You will get a lot of flak for your story, but that is the unfortunate way of the world when it comes to exposing inconvenient truths. Stick to your guns and keep up the excellent work.
October 16, 2008 |
Ford Greene
1 comment:
I think it's important to point out that it's not only high school students using this field. My son is 8 years old, and has soccer practice twice a week on the field behind Safeway. I came out one day to watch practice, and while the kids are sitting there doing their stretches and warm ups, I saw a number of them picking up handfuls of the tire-grounds and playing with it as if it were sand. They're kids, and they simply assume that whatever environment they're put in by adults must be safe. As parents, we need to know what the real dangers are.
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