The Daily Post first reported this story on Jan. 25 in its print edition. Another news organization lifted this story, made a few changes, and presented it as their own. If you want local news stories first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is considering a ban on artificial turf on county fields.
Health advocates are in favor of the ban because chemicals in turf may cause health problems like cancer.
But parents and coaches who rely on the availability of fields are worried about losing playing time that’s already hard to book, especially in the winter. Because of turf’s durability, it allows for up to 3.5 times more playing time than grass, Deputy County Executive Sylvia Gallegos said in a report for the board. The county found that turf poses “potential risks” to human health that grass doesn’t, Gallegos said.public health officials reviewed scientific research
“However, it is difficult to conclude with scientific certainty about the severity of these risks or compare them to other potential exposure types, given the limited studies,” Gallegos said.
Turf contains manufactured chemicals known as “forever chemicals” or “PFAS” that don’t break down.
These chemicals are also in water, soil, air, food, cleaning products and more, Gallegos said.
The county also looked at concerns around microplastics pollution and turf ending up in the landfill.
“Turf has the dubious distinction of being something that will linger on this planet forever,” resident Linda Nancy Marquez said. “Even this modest action will serve as a first step towards encouraging other counties and cities to consider enacting their own bans.”
Turf gets hotter
Studies found turf with rubber in-fill can exceed 122 degrees compared to natural grass at around 82 degrees in the same climate, Gallegos said.
Companies are trying to make turf with non-toxic and recyclable products, Gallegos said.
Supervisors will have the option on Tuesday of banning turf on county properties leased to private companies, including a field at Challenger School in Palo Alto at 3880 Middlefield Road.
Supervisors could also exempt playing fields that are marked with lines for a specific sport, or they could allow turf with no rubber in-fill.
A turf ban was recommended by Supervisor Otto Lee in April.
Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga represents northern Santa Clara County on the five-member board.
Parents worried
Parents are worried about the impact to youth sports.
“We need more fields, but we do not have more land,” said Chaitra Gowda, whose son plays for the Sunnyvale Alliance Soccer Club.
Stanford professor Nick Bloom said parents should get to decide what is best for their kid’s health. French fries and video games are probably bad for kids, but supervisors aren’t banning those, he said.
“Playing a sport is important given concerns about obesity and mental health,” Bloom said. “This far outweighs some putative low-level concerns over turf field emissions, noting science of this is borderline.”
On the other side, advocates are highlighting the potential health impacts with more scientific studies about microplastics, forever chemicals and the difficulty of recycling turf.
Palo Alto looking into ban
Palo Alto City Council on Monday was set to hire Lloyd Consulting Group for $232,985 to study the impacts of turf for six months.
But council decided to discuss the contract at a later date before voting.
The city of Palo Alto manages turf fields at El Camino Park, Stanford’s Mayfield Soccer Complex, and the Cubberley Community Center.
The soccer fields at El Camino Park and Stanford are at the end of their playable life, Community Services Director Kristen O’Kane said in a report for council.
Diego Velasquez, a minor, sued the city in October over its turf.
Velasquez’s attorney said a gum-like substance seeped out of the turf, stuck to his shoe and caused him to fall at the Mayfield Soccer Complex on Aug. 26, 2023.
“Our fields are meeting all required safety standards and adhere to synthetic field maintenance best practices as per manufacturer’s specifications,” city spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan-Taylor said in response.
The first hearing in the case is May 22.
The County should be looking at alternatives regarding artificial grass. One manufacturer has a non-infill product that is 15-20 degrees cooler then the majority of products on the market.
AGL Grass: local dealer is located in Rocklin, CA. Call them at 916-251-7123
Otto Lee is right. Ban artificial turf. Too many inujuries.
Have you ever actually played on a grass pitch? Have you see what Cubberley, Greer, JLS or the other grass pitches look like? Just walk over and look at them. Once glance will tell you they are full of gopher holes, broken sprinkler heads and dead grass patches. In comparison the turf pitches at Cubberley, Mayfield and El Camino are flat and smooth. I play soccer weekly and we far prefer the turf pitches as nobody is rolling their ankle. Turf is safer to play on – trust me, I’m playing on them weekly 🙂
“Palo Alto City Council on Monday was set to hire Lloyd Consulting Group for $232,985 to study the impacts of turf for six months.
But council decided to discuss the contract at a later date before voting.”
Incredible they would consider hiring another consultant to study something for which there’s tons of publicly available information online and our “leaders” could have simply delegated someone to do a search.
Actually not incredible when you think about how they voted to pay someone $500,000 to conduct school assemblies on bike safety as if there were no one already on the city payroll who could lead assemblies and/or do a search for relevant videos to air during assembly and/or a single parent to lead the assemblies like in the past when how the city spent our money mattered.
Turf pitches are better for health – this article is completely wrong.
Only turf pitches are open in the winter in Palo Alto. So for kids and adults that play soccer or lacrosse without turf pitches there is no sport for 4 months. We have a national obesity and mental health crisis and the city is trying to make that worse by closing pitches.
I wish articles like this would use actual science rather than using PR put out by developers.
Indeed, I went to the meeting today at Santa Clara County and thankfully science and data won out and the turf pitches will not be removed. Indeed, from what I saw, the folks pushing to remove turf pitches either have no kids or had developer funding.
Where is the ban on the far, far more dangerous vaccines – the deadliest product made by man? How many people know about the toxic chemicals, like mercury and aluminum, for starters, in the vaccines, along with the rapidly growing connection between vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome, death, autism, myocarditis…asthma, peanut allergies, diabetes, and other autoimmune disorders?
Alan,
Please provide us with links to scientific journals that support your point of view.
This is when Alvin disappears.