The county Board of Supervisors couldn’t make a decision about the safety of synthetic turf at their December 3 meeting. The Board was asked to give $225,000 to aid the county schools’ replacement of natural grass on three high school stadium fields, but Board members were uneasy green lighting the project without concrete data on the potential health concerns for student athletes.
The funds would help Monticello, Albemarle and Western Albemarle high schools to afford the $600,000 cost per field, reduced from an earlier estimate of $800,000. An anonymous donor gave $1.5 million toward installing synthetic turf at the local public high schools, including Charlottesville High.
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County supes couldn’t decide last week if artificial turf, like the kind that covers this field at UVA, is too dangerous for county high school students. |
Staff reported that the initial expenditure is the only big investment because the cost of maintaining synthetic turf fields is less expensive than that of natural grass.
“The economics of this makes sense to me,” said Supervisor David Slutzky. “My concern is about the health and safety issues,” citing lead content and overheating. According to a Brigham Young University study, the surface temperature of synthetic turf of the university’s football practice field was 37 degrees higher than asphalt and 86.5 degrees hotter than natural grass.
Fitzgerald Barnes, athletic director of Monticello High School, said that students would be playing on the field “after the time of about five in the afternoon, when heat is not a big factor.” Synthetic turf would be much easier to manage, said Barnes, and the number of injuries would be a lot less than on natural grass.
“Right now, my field at Monticello High School is a mess, and if you get rain, we don’t have the manpower to work the fields the way they should be worked,” he said in an interview.
Supervisor Dennis Rooker asked the Board to obtain a written statement from the manufacturing company guaranteeing that lead levels are below hazardous standards and a product sample to be tested independently.
Jon Pritchett, CEO of General Sports Venue, the manufacturing company that will supply the turf, agreed to both conditions. “As it related to the products we produce, I can give you confidence that we don’t believe there are any safety concerns or any level of heavy metals that can be made available, so therefore we consider it to be safe.”
School Board Chair Brian Wheeler says that if the Board doesn’t approve the $225,000, the schools will seek to raise the money privately.
“We reviewed [the safety issues] when it was before the School Board last year, and obviously the School Board was comfortable in moving forward,” says Wheeler.
Slutzky and Supervisor Ann Mallek were appointed to work with county staff to answer questions raised by the Board, which will take it back up on Tuesday, December 9.
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