July 7, 2005 Kenneth R. Bounds Superintendent Seattle Parks and Recreation 100 Dexter Ave N Seattle  WA  98109 Dear Mr. Bounds: Thank you for your letter regarding the replacement of the Loyal Heights Playfield lawn with artificial turf.  I can certainly appreciate that a form letter is necessary given the number of letters you have received from the community surrounding Loyal Heights Playfield Your letter asserts several benefits of artificial turf that are either questionable or not true. These assertions should be addressed before moving forward with the costly and irreversible decision of replacing the Loyal Heights Playfield lawn with artificial grass, such as: “(Artificial turf is) much safer for players…”   “The rate of injuries on modern turf fields and on well-maintained grass fields is essentially equal… The researchers found there was a greater incidence of surface to skin injuries and muscle strains and spasms on FieldTurf… The researchers also found a significantly higher incidence of injury on FieldTurf during hot days than natural grass.” “Lawns are 14 degrees cooler on hot days than bare soil.” Athletic Turf News, Oct 27, 2004, citing the American Journal of Sports Medicine, Oct 2004. "Artificial grass can be as much as 15 degrees hotter than natural grass and that spraying artificial grass twice a day during hot months is necessary." Environmental Building News, April 2004. ”Artificial turf…frequently offgasses volatile organic compounds (VOCs.) This could be a concern for children…and the growing number of Americans with asthma… Darren Gill, FieldTurf marketing manager, said that “turf offgasses a ‘rubbery smell.’ ” Environmental Building News, April 2004. Relative to noise levels around athletic fields: “The lawn Institute reports that turf grass reduces noise levels by 8 to 10 decibels.” Environmental Building News, April 2004. “There are concerns with the safety of the products used to make the (synthetic) fields, as well as how to clean and disinfect synthetic infill fields.” Athletic Turf News, May 24, 2005, quoting from Amy J. Fouty, CSFM, athletic turf manager for Michigan State University. "Silica dust from the sand/rubber mixture could be released into the atmosphere during play." Report of the Athletic field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District, New York. “The synthetic field has a life expectancy of 15 years…” “Artificial turf systems are generally warranted for about eight years, but the actual life expectancy is unknown.   FieldTurf made the first infill system less than eight years ago, but (quoting Darren Gill, marketing manager for FieldTurf) ‘laboratory testing would suggest that our fields will last 10 to 12 years.’ ” Environmental Building News, April 2004. "The replacement time frame or life of the artificial surface can… range from 8 to 10 years.” Report of the Athletic Field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District. “…and will be replaced at a cost of about $800,000.” FieldTurf is a polypropylene/ polyethylene monofilament ribbon file product, an oil refining by-product, requiring significant resources in its manufacture, including water to form and cool.  It is unlikely that anyone can predict the cost or availability of oil and other resources, and thus FieldTurf, 15 years from now. “The cost of maintaining a grass athletic field is very high (compared to artificial turf.)”   “The meat of Fouty’s (Amy J. Fouty, CSFM, athletic turf manager for Michigan State University) presentation was the breakdown of the maintenance budget for MSU’s indoor practice field.  The bottom line: MSU’s field costs nearly $23,000 a year to maintain.” Athletic Turf News, May 24, 2005, “Experts Spell Out the True Cost of Synthetic Turf Maintenance.” ”Powell does not recommend a synthetic infill system to replace a grass field to lower maintenance costs.  In Powell’s opinion, it will ‘take dozens of years to make this option pay and the infill system will need replacement in eight to 10 years.’ ” Athletic Turf News, May 21, 2005, citing Dr. A. J. Powell, University of Kentucky, in his presentation to the 2005 Sports Turf Managers Conference: “Natural Turf or Synthetic Turf: the Numbers Game.” “Biological material, such as leaves and feces, will not decompose as quickly on plastics as natural grass, so more maintenance is necessary to keep artificial turf tidy. Environmental Building News, April 2004. The (artificial turf) field needs to be cleaned once or twice a week with a lawn leaf sweeper. Once or twice a month the turf should be fluffed. Report of the Athletic field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District, New York. Sports drinks, soft drinks, gum, oil, paint, and cigarette and other burns are potentially harmful to artificial surfaces and may require repair.  If necessary, an area may have to be removed and replaced.  Grass is, however, a self- cleaning surface and the items mentioned above will not cause permanent damage. Report of the Athletic field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District, New York. “For maintaining fields, FieldTurf sells a special machine called the Super Groomer…” Environmental Building News, April 2004. “To keep a grass field in good condition requires a lot of water…” Watering Loyal Heights Playfield doesn’t necessarily mean using the inefficient rain-bird system now in place nor does the water need to come solely from the public water system. The Northgate Community Center and Library project spent less than $200,000 to construct a complete stormwater collection, retention, and irrigation system. The Parks Department itself, through its Sustainable Building and Development program, is discussing pilot projects using a method of water retrieval and sub-surface irrigation in conjunction with a hybrid natural grass blend.  The prototype method has been developed by Evaporative Control Systems Inc and is in use, among other places, at a 2.2 acre, Reno, Nevada, high school athletic field.  The cost of installation was $4.00 per square foot. (The cost of installing artificial turf at Loyal Heights Playfield will be at least  $6.00 per square foot, or $800,000 ÷ 3 acres.)     Interview with Parks Department employee. “…gas for lawn mowers…” Beside the fact that mowers can also be electric or powered by biofuel, the gasoline needed to grade the field for the installation of the artificial grass will be roughly 19,400 gallons.  This is calculated by: 3 acres X 2 feet of excavation = 9700 cy removed X 2 (dirt out + open-graded stone/choke stone/infill material in) = 19,400 cy ÷ 10 cy dump truck loads =  1940 dump trucks X 50-mile round trip = 97,000 miles ÷ 5 mph = 19,400 gallons of gas or diesel.    “…and sometimes herbicide.” “We do not routinely use herbicides on athletic field turf, or any other lawn areas in parks in fact it would be considered a very rare occurrence (from my knowledge base); only twice in the last 18 years has a turf broadleaf herbicide been used that I am aware of. There's really no need to control weeds in turf from our perspective.” Seattle Parks and Recreation Dept, email response. However, artificial turf does require some chemicals for maintenance: For the first few years, static control is a problem that requires a spray of diluted fabric softener. Quoting Ms. Fouty: “It also takes away the old tire smell.” Athletic Turf News, May 24, 2005. The question of having to use an antibiotic spray in the case of biological contamination, such as feces, urine, blood, or a staphylococcus outbreak has not been successfully answered.   “Synthetic fields need no irrigation…” Water is used to cool the fields down in hot conditions or, quoting Darren Gill, FieldTurf marketing manager, “to clean up blood or vomit or something.” Environmental Building News, April 2004. “There is a potential need to irrigate a filed on a very hot day in order to keep the field temperature down.” Report of the Athletic field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District, New York. “… or weed control.” “Natural grass is tenacious and can work its way through the semi-pervious artificial turf.” She recommends spot- treating the turf with a topical herbicide. Environmental Building News, April 2004, Citing Cynthia D’Angelo, landscape architect with Turf Effects, LLC. “(Artificial turf fields) are made of recycled and recyclable materials.” "Nobody is recycling artificial turf into other products. Recycling artificial turf would be  “tremendously difficult… since it is made of so many types of plastics.’ ” Environmental Building News, April 2004, citing Dana Draper of the Institute Recycling Network. "Concerns about artificial turf include possible heavy metal contamination of soil and ground water upon disposal." Report of the Athletic field Turf Committee, Chappaqua Central School District, New York. Only half of the infill material is made from recycled materials- ground-down rubber of old tires. The other half of the infill system is silica. The artificial grass itself has to be freshly manufactured. “Synthetic fields allow rain to percolate into the soil.  They (are) effective at storm water detention and filtering.”    Artificial grass fields in the city have been constructed with a network of under drains to capture and transport infiltrating rainwater to storm drains, sewers, or to streams or ditches. (Parks has obtained construction permits from DPD for 1 of  5 in-place artificial turf fields.) Department of Planning and Development records. Loyal Heights Playfield now has no underdrain system, so the rainwater currently percolates through the soil and into the ground water table which feeds the mature trees and grass to the south, east, and west of the field.  The artificial grass underdrains will not allow this to happen and will lower the local water table. Rainwater detention will be needed at Loyal Heights because the under drain system will discharge to a public combined sewer, not to a storm drain. A large detention system will    need to be constructed so that heavy storms do not overwhelm the combined sewer system. (Seattle Public Utilities constructed a detention system for Rogers Park.) Stormwater, Grading, and Drainage Control Code, SMC 22.800. I have found no studies that show a propylene/polyethelene/ground rubber surfacing to be safe for the ground water.   A previously noted reference indicates a concern about heavy metal contamination of the soil when the turf is landfilled.   “More environmentally sustainable than grass.” Through the process of photosynthesis, grass converts carbon dioxide to oxygen. “TPI (Turf Grass Producers International) claims that a 2,500 ft2 lawn releases ‘enough oxygen for a family of four to breath.’ ” Simultaneously, the absorption of carbon dioxide mitigates the process of global climate change. Environmental Building News, April 2004. “(Artificial turf) blocks both water and sunlight either completely or in a very large degree, and without that, you can’t have a living system in the soil”.  It diminishes the health of the underlying soil, thereby decreasing its ability to hold water. “When you remove the vegetation from an area so completely you’re actually contributing, in the long run, to drought.” Environmental Building News, April, 2004, quoting Ken Sorvig, research associate professor at the University of New Mexico. Artificial turf does not promote the Mayor’s efforts to curb global warming.  On February 16, 2005, the historic day when the Kyoto Protocol took effect, Mayor Greg Nickels announced the City of Seattle's 2005 Environmental Action Agenda “to protect our air quality, the health of our community and our environment.” Artificial turf also runs counter to the Parks Department’s stated mission: "Seattle Parks and Recreation will work with all citizens to be good stewards of our environment and to provide safe and welcoming opportunities to play, learn, contemplate and build community.” The real question then is, “Does artificial grass sustain the environment at all?” It appears that artificial grass has very few, if any, of the benefits claimed.  In fact, it may even create harm to the environment. A very careful appraisal of artificial grass at Loyal Heights, if not our whole Parks system itself, seems necessary. Sincerely,