Lessons From The Vineyard On Turf Fields

To the editor: My name is Terry Donahue. For close to six years, a group attempted to build a new athletic complex on Martha’s Vineyard. We went before and passed the Martha’s Vineyard High School Board, the Oak Bluffs Planning Board, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. The Oak Bluffs Board of Health turned the project down. The project was attacked at every meeting, not by science but via irrational fears. There was never one piece of scientific evidence presented at any of the meetings to show why the turf field should not be installed. The list of reasons supporting the furf field are below.

Our Vineyard athletes are now forced to play on substandard fields. Read the facts and call your Board of Health members. The board is going to try to condition the project to the point it is unbuildable.

Don’t let this happen to Nantucket’s athletes.

Tetra Tech Turf Laboratory Testing

• Found PFAS in samples tested to be similar or less that samples taken from the soil at your current field.

Alpha Analytic Laboratory Testing

• Found no PFAS in the Greenfield Turf and pine infill tested
• They found 1101 parts per trillion (PPT) in the soil tested

Haley & Aldrich conducted a multiyear survey of water leaching through the Concord/Carlise turf field. They found no pollutants in their samples taken.

Samples taken at the sewer system at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport found

• 132.3 PPT per Gallon of treated effluent
• A three-bedroom house produces 330 gallons of effluent per day

Cost of maintaining grass vs. turf for 15 years

• Three grass fields required to meet the usage load of one turf field is $2,000.000
• One turf field for 15 years, including replacement of the turf is $1,920,000

Artificial Turf (with 2-inch pad or equivalent shock absorption)

• FieldTurf cites multi-year independent studies showing that fields with shock pads have up to 44 percent fewer concussion injuries compared to traditional natural grass in U.S. high school football.

Terry Donahue