Although a consultant hired by the Menlo Park City School District says the artificial turf playing fields at Hillview Middle School and Kelly Park pose only an insignificant risk of cancer, parents have asked for more study of the safety of the ground-up recycled tires used in the fields.
After hearing a report on Nov. 14 from the consultant hired to test the fields, school board members asked district administrators to get them more information.
The report by David Teter of Oakland’s Millennium Consulting Associates concluded that the additional cancer risk from exposure to substances found in samples of Hillview’s crumb rubber was less than one in a million and is “below the estimated additional cancer risk from playing soccer on urban and rural surface soils.”
A group called the Committee for Safe Fields for Menlo Park had another consulting firm review Mr. Teter’s report. Among the concerns was that the report did not test for a chemical called 1,3 butadiene, used in the manufacture of tires and a component of urban air pollution.
The Safe Fields group said the consultant also did not test for dangers from inhaling crumb rubber and the gases it releases. The crumb rubber is used as infill in artificial grass fields.
District officials plan to take these actions: talk with officials from neighboring jurisdictions, some of which have replaced the crumb rubber in their fields with materials such as cork; check in with the city of Menlo Park, which shares use and management of the Hillview field; and investigate the costs of testing for inhalation dangers from the fields.
“We want to know now … so we can take action,” said board member Terry Thgysen.
“We want your professional opinion — is this safe?” board member Joan Lambert asked district administrators. But Superintendent Erik Burmeister told the board that he is not an expert in determining the safety of the field materials. The experts hired by the district “have said nothing can be deemed safe,” he said.
“This is not going to be an empirical decision,” Superintendent Burmeister told the board. “I think it’s going to be a political decision.”
What the board does is also going to be a budget decision. The district heard from a second consultant, Devin Conway of Santa Clara’s Verde Design, who said the cost to replace the crumb rubber with another substance is between $250,000 to $375,000.
Completely replacing the field would cost $750,000 to $850,000. The field is expected to last at least eight more years before it needs replacement, he said.
Later in the meeting, the board did agree to set aside a little more than $59,000 from one-time state funds toward a future replacement of the playing field. However, replacing the crumb rubber or the field earlier than planned may mean cutting some other program to pay for it.
“I feel like we need to have a conversation about how important this is compared to some of these other” budget priorities, board member Caroline Lucas said.
The district had asked for the testing after receiving a San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report about the possible health dangers of artificial turf playing fields. The city of Menlo Park joined in, hiring a consultant to test both the Hillview field, which the city manages during non-school hours, and its artificial turf field at Kelly Park.
The school district also joined in a state study of the safety of crumb rubber, but the results of that study may not be released for several years.
In a letter sent to the Menlo Park City Council as well as the school district, the Safe Fields group wrote that as air quality becomes worse with development and changes in the climate, it is important to try to “improve the air quality our children breathe, especially when inhaling large amounts of that air while exercising on sports fields. One step in that direction is removing the hazardous waste, also known as shredded recycled tires, from the fields on which our children play.”
Mr. Teter said that he believes the most significant dangers from artificial turf fields are not from the chemicals used to make them. He said his own child often uses the fields and what he worries about is head injuries and things such as the discarded needle his child once came in contact with on a field.
The Hillview and Kelly Park fields are relatively safe for head injuries, he said, because they both use good quality shock pads below the turf.
