STORROWING. How are some Newton City officials like the drivers who ignore the “low clearance” signs on Storrow Drive?
September 1, 2023
The city officials who plan to install artificial turf at Albemarle and at Newton North High School are like the drivers who hit the low bridges. They both ignore multiple warnings as they plunge ahead deliberately indifferent to obvious consequences until the damage is done. Locals call this type of willful blindness storrowing.
Newton’s proponents of artificial turf are dismissing the expert medical and public health references that document the health and safety hazards and environmental contamination. They also ignore warnings about misleading claims about the benefits of artificial turf and the likelihood that anticipated regulations will burden the City with significant fiscal liabilities in the near future.
It is surprising to read the Mayor’s claims that the field removal project at Newton South High School (NSHS) confined the plastic debris and tire crumb infill to the “work site” (Mayor’s Newsletter, 8/8/23, page 2).
Photos and videos of the area clearly show that plastic debris and tire crumb were dispersed on the walkways, driveways and access roads, the grassy areas, near a swing set used by the NSHS preschool and into unprotected storm drains and was spilling from the rolls of turf as trucks left the property.
Vacuuming the storm drains can hardly be called an “effective precaution” given that there were a series of heavy rains the week before.
And there are also photos that show that the straw wattles used as “erosion controls” did little to control the runoff.
Recent photos of NSHS’s new artificial turf installation show a lack of precautions to confine plastic debris and infill. The new fields are made of the same plastic and other polluting components as the old fields and the new substitute infill material, TPE and Silica Sand, also pose risks to health and the environment. See “Alternative Infills for Artificial Turf Fact Sheet.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Join the Facebook group where new references and resources are posted daily.
Check the SYNTURF website to find new webinars and studies about the health and environmental impacts of artificial turf and for examples of safe high performance organic grass fields.
Read the expert testimonies supporting public policies to protect the people of Newton and the Commonwealth from PFAS and other known exposure hazards and contaminants in artificial turf.
Share these graphics from the Silent Spring Institute and the UMass Lowell’s Toxics Use Reduction Institute to inform your friends and neighbors why artificial turf is a poor choice for Newton.
Sign the petition by Better Action Now On Artificial Turf in Newton. It calls on the Mayor and City Councilors to stop the plan for more artificial turf.
Comments and Questions: ellie.goldberg@gmail.com
