MIT lecturer sees no danger to children in synthetic turf
11 Feb, 2009 Athletic Turf NewsCONCORD, MA —MIT lecturer Dr. Laura Green, a senior scientist and president of Cambridge Environmental told the Board of Selectmen here Feb. 10 that she fundamentally could not think of a way the turf surface of the playing fields at Concord-Carlisle High School could present a danger to children, reports the Concord Journal newspaper.
“I cannot find a risk here,” she said. “I’m quite confident, both because the total lead content is very low and the bioavailability [of lead within the plastic blades of grass] is unmeasurable.”
Green told the selectmen that she and her colleagues have spent 30 years looking at how the land children play on affects them.
She said plastic grass, such as that which covers the CCHS playing fields, is often colored with lead pigment, but, for the most part, the lead stays within the blades. Therefore, potential danger to children is more accurately assessed by looking not at lead content, but at the amount of lead liberated in the form of dust that can be ingested or inhaled, Green said.
Although two feet of snow covering the fields here prevented testing, Green said a “wipe test” of a field with plastic grass with 10-times the lead content of the fields in Concord liberated a negligible amount of bioavailable lead, reports the newspaper.
To access the reports that were presented at the meeting, click here.
"Scientist: Tests show turf fields are safe," by Patrick Ball, Concord Journal, Feb. 11
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