Artificial Turf Debate Resumes Thursday As Board Of Health Considers Moratorium And Testing Regime
JohnCarl McGrady •
The Board of Health is set to consider two motions on Thursday that would restrict the installation of artificial turf on Nantucket, one of which would institute an island-wide moratorium, despite assurances that only a proposed project slated for Vito Capizzo Stadium would be affected by the ongoing deliberations.
The vote comes as the Board of Health and Select Board face open meeting law complaints for their handling of the Board of Health’s most recent discussion on artificial turf.
The embattled project, proposed by the Nantucket Public Schools, has been the subject of dozens of hours of debate before the School Committee and the Board of Health, mostly focused on the possibility that the turf could include the harmful substances known as PFAS, which are linked to cancer and other adverse health outcomes. School officials maintain that the field will not include any intentionally added PFAS, but opponents are not confident in the proposed testing regimen and worry that such claims could be misleading. During the debate, some concerns have also been raised about micro- and nanoplastics, small fragments of plastic linked to negative human health impacts.
To address these concerns, one motion the Board of Health will consider on Thursday would require “comprehensive testing” of all materials used in the proposed Vito Capizzo Stadium field, allowing their inclusion only if they test below established state and federal thresholds for a series of potentially toxic substances, including PFAS. Drafted in concert with the Nantucket Land and Water Council, a local environmental advocacy group, this motion would apply only to the Vito Capizzo Stadium field and would allow it to proceed if it meets existing criteria established by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and other relevant agencies.
In cases where standards don’t exist for a specific substance, “surrogate compounds” with existing thresholds would be selected.
“Materials with all PFAS compound concentrations below their selected comparison concentrations are deemed acceptable for use at the Capizzo Stadium project,” the motion reads in part.
The other motion, proposed by Board of Health vice chair Meredith Lepore, is much more restrictive and would institute an island-wide moratorium on all artificial turf installations.
“In order to prevent the contamination of Nantucket’s sole-source aquifer with toxic compounds that are persistent and known to adversely impact human health and the environment, we are drafting an immediate moratorium on artificial turf systems that can contaminate our drinking water,” the motion reads in part.
The motion comes after Board of Health chair Ann Smith publicly promised the community that the discussion was restricted to the single project proposed for Vito Capizzo Stadium.
“Our task tonight is limited to this specific proposal at this specific location,” Smith said at the Board of Health’s last regularly scheduled meeting. “We’re not deciding broader artificial turf policy for Nantucket and we are not addressing future installations anywhere else on the island.”
A pair of motions Smith planned to make at the last meeting before it was cut short by open meeting law concerns are also included in the Board of Health’s agenda packet. Those motions call for any artificial turf to conform with standards set by the Board of Health, but do not outline the standards in detail.
While the Board of Health has yet to debate the merits of the synthetic track that the Nantucket Public Schools plan to place around the turf field, Lepore’s motion appears to place a moratorium on all synthetic track installations across Nantucket as well, referring to “turf systems and track” and “the field and surrounding track.”
The moratorium would last three years, unless a battery of tests showed “zero PFAS” and “zero” microlastics and nanoplastics. Given the ubiquity of microplastics, which have been detected in bees, uninhabited islands, and the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it could prove a nearly impossible threshold to clear.
Lepore’s motion is listed under an agenda item that reads “discussion of Vito Capizzo Stadium renovation project.” Her motion applies well beyond the scope considered on that agenda, though a subitem contemplates a “moratorium.”
That could draw some attention Thursday, after open meeting law concerns centered in large part on vague agenda items derailed the last debate on turf, with three Select Board members calling on Smith to shut down the discussion.
Following the meeting, open meeting law complaints were filed against the Board of Health for the discussion and Select Board for a quorum of their membership intervening. The Select Board denied any wrongdoing, and their response has been appealed to the Attorney General. The Board of Health agreed to evaluate current meeting practices and release certain emails, but stopped short of admitting an open meeting law violation.
Lepore has been the Board of Health’s staunchest opponent of turf. Her term expires this year, as does Smith’s, and they will need Select Board support to be reappointed.
The upcoming Board of Health meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, April 16th at 4 p.m. in the community room of the Nantucket Public Safety Facility at 4 Fairgrounds Road.