Pleasant Valley awards turf bid to FieldTurf USA

By Brian Myszkowski / Pocono Record Writer

Pleasant Valley’s board of education awarded the bid for the replacement of the stadium turf and drainage improvements at Thursday’s meeting, though not without a lively debate.

The board, in a 5-3 vote, approved an agenda item to award the bid to FieldTurf USA, Inc., in the amount of $860,551. Member Delbert Zacharias was absent.

Five other base bids for the project, ranging from $967,575 from Astro Turf to over $1.6 million from NET Sports Group, had also been received by the Feb. 8 deadline.

The project will include the installation of a new shock pad system and a drainage channel in addition to the replacement of the old turf system.

The bid vote had originally been scheduled for the Feb. 28 meeting, though a motion to table the matter won approval when several board members expressed a desire to conduct further personal research on turf materials.

Once the agenda item came up for a vote, Russell Gould commented on the discussion process for the turf replacement project, which began in late 2017.

“Once again, this stuff was on the agenda, and at the eleventh hour, then there’s concerns,” Gould said. “I have no problem with concerns, I think that’s great. That’s what our job is – when we have concerns, we have to go to the proper people... This has been going on for at least 15 months, and nobody brought it up.”

While board vice president Donna Yozwiak had previously expressed some skepticism about the state of the current turf and whether it needed a replacement, all board members appeared to agree that it was a necessity.

The only true point of contention was rooted in the fill.

Board members Leonard Peeters, Laura Jecker and Yozwiak presented a short slide show addressing some of their concerns with crumb rubber turf as opposed to alternatives such as coconut husks or EPDM rubber, similar to crumb rubber but not recycled from used tires.

Studies, research papers and opinions from Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, Nancy Alderman, president of Environment and Human Health Inc. and coach Amy Griffin of the University of Washington were presented, with an overall consensus that crumb rubber was potentially dangerous for students due to carcinogenic chemicals.

“I want to make it clear— I am not against replacing the turf field,” Yozwiak said. “I believe we need a new field. I do not believe crumb rubber is the answer. There are many organic components that could be looked into and bid for.”

Gasper pointed out that if the district were to switch to a cork fill, it would add $200,000 to the base price, and require $20,000 to $30,000 in replacements annually. EPDM rubber, which is similar to crumb but does not contain recycled tires, would cost around $100,000 extra.

Superintendent David Piperato read aloud a letter from FieldTurf USA which claimed that their crumb rubber fill was safe for use according to various governmental agencies.

“FieldTurf certifies that the crumb rubber that we will be using for your field currently passes all of the above standards,” Piperato read. “If, in the future, the [Consumer Safety Product Commison], the EPA or [Centers for Disease Control] determines that additional studies are needed on crumb rubber, and the crumb rubber installed at your district is shown by these studies to present a health risk, FieldTurf would remove the existing crumb rubber in-fill at no cost to Pleasant Valley School District.”

Board members Kenneth Cocuzzo and Daniel Wunder both said that while research into the matter of the safest turf fill for students was important, a healthy sense of skepticism was necessary.

“Without concrete evidence and a study by a bona fide federal agency that handles health and safety, environmental issues, whatever you want, we as laypeople don’t have the knowledge, the expertise, to say definitively that one way is better,” Cocuzzo said.

“I think we have people of good quality on this board who have a natural disagreement because they’re concerned, and that’s good. But at some point we have to make a decision here, because we are going to bring our sports programs to an end if we don’t get that field out of there.”

Photo and Story from the Pocono Record