Politics & Government

Dover Board of Health Discusses Artificial Turf at High School

The board discussed some of the health and safety issues of the proposed artificial turf project.

Dover-Sherborn Athletic Director Heath Rollins and D-S Regional School Committee member Robyn Hunter met with the Dover Board of Health Monday night to discuss their proposed project to replace the current natural grass turf at Frothingham Field with a synthetic turf field.

“We are here this evening because the first phase of this project would be to, potentially, if we got the funding, replace our current stadium field with artificial turf,” Hunter said. “There was a lot of back and forth regarding the artificial turf and one of the reasons it’s become imperative for us to replace our natural turf field with at least one artificial turf field is the number of games that we play on our fields.”

An determined that the current fields are being overused and that a synthetic turf field would be the best route.

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“The result of the study is that a synthetic field allows us to double our capacity on one field instead of having to expand our footprint of our school,” Rollins told the board.

BOH member Dr. Barbara Roth-Schechter said that the main concern of the board is that it is a health issue and the level of safety depends on what kind of synthetic turf they choose to put in.

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“Is it safe? And over the years we’re now at the fourth generation of artificial turf where people have studied comparatively first, second and third generation turf and grass and any other surfaces and the health hazards in fact have progressively decreased. That is why it is essential that we understand which kind of artificial turf is targeted to be put there and how much it’s being used and how often it is being watered. That is the critical thing as it turns out,” she said.

Hunter said that they have only gone as far as the study and have not hired any contractors at this point.

“We couldn’t tell you what product today we’re going to install. We’re just here today to tell you that this is a project that we would like to embark upon and it is a big concern of ours and when we do select a contractor we are going to emphasize again that we want to select a product that meets safety standards,” said Hunter.

BOH member Dr. Harvey George suggested that the overuse of the fields may drop given that the population of students that age in town is trending downward.

“A couple of other issues you might want to consider, first of all the population projection shows that the number of children are actually decreasing of that age. That the population is going down and we saw these stats in last year’s [Town Report],” said George.

Hunter explained that they took that into consideration and they believe that with the current population levels the fields are still being overused.

“We are really aware that right now we have an enrollment bubble at the region but our access capacity at the fields is just so much that even going back to normal enrollment numbers we can still justify or it still makes sense for us to have an artificial turf field,” she said.

Another concern of George's was the issue of the disposal of the turf field once it has run it's course.

“The second thing I have is that the life span of these materials are reported to be somewhere between 8 and 12, maybe 13 years. They are a hydrocarbon product which means their disposal can represent a significant financial burden and what happens in many cases is that when they have to replace it they just roll up the previous lawn and deposit it behind the school or someplace else and it’s there forever and ever because the towns can’t afford at that point to dispose of the big problem material,” George said.

Rollins said that they have addressed the issue and that some companies offer to recycle the old materials once they need replacing which helps.

"So that is a step in the right direction but it has included a significant cost increase to the replacement cost of it. But that’s something we’ve examined,” Rollins said.

Roth-Schechter said she approved of the approach they were taking in talking to them early on in the project and said she would lend her support “scientifically" in terms of if they have any questions.

“It’s an ambitious project and that’s why we want to make sure we get input from everybody at the beginning before we go out and start asking for money, that we have covered all of our steps before we get out there,” Rollins said.


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