Artificial Turf Takes Root; Schools, Towns Pay Millions for Synthetic Fields

May 23, 2005
By ADRIENNE LU, STAFF WRITER, North Jersey Media Group
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

From a distance, Johnson Field in Hackensack is a lush, verdant expanse free of bumps, dips, muddy puddles and bald spots. But like a toupee, the field is a little too perfect. Its polyethylene blades of grass reflect the sun a bit too brightly. No yellow patches cry out to be watered. Dig your toes down deep and you won't find cool dirt but black rubber specks about the size of sesame seeds.Say hello to the local athletic field of the 21st century, a specimen spreading faster than crabgrass.

Towns and school systems throughout the nation are trading in their sod for artificial turf, saying it is far more durable, easier to maintain and a lot safer than the AstroTurf® of years past that athletes loved to hate. The Fort Lee Borough Council voted earlier this month to give the town's school board up to $1.7 million to install synthetic turf. Park Ridge, Oradell and Lodi are in the process of installing faux turfs, and half the dozen schools in the North Bergen Interscholastic League already boast them, along with towns including Wayne, Tenafly and Mahwah. Fake turf is catching on from the New York City parks to California.

The Synthetic Turf Council, an industry group based in Dalton, Ga., estimates that 800 artificial turf fields will be installed in the United States this year, up from about 600 last year and 400 the year before. The artificial turf industry started taking off about seven years ago, according to Ron VanGelderen, president of the council, spurred by improvements in technology that helped to create much more realistic turf. "Everybody's going to get them," said Lou Molino, athletic director for the Ramsey school district, which has an artificial turf field. "It's the wave of the future." Sod growers are beginning to look over their shoulders.

Turfgrass Producers International, which represents sod farmers and others who work in the field, appointed a task force last year to investigate the potential damage to market share. The group questions many of the claims made by artificial turf producers, from the cost to the longevity of artificial turf. Brad Park, sports turf education and research coordinator at the Center for Turfgrass Science at Rutgers University, said the heat generated by artificial turf during hot weather is one important concern. At Rutgers, he said, the artificial turf is watered regularly to make sure it doesn't get too hot. Another concern is how the fields will be disposed of when they're replaced. Also, little is known about the safety of playing on recycled tire rubber, which is commonly used to fill in the new turfs and which may contain heavy metals, Park said.

The Synthetic Turf Council says its members do not use any materials that might be hazardous. For New Jersey towns and schools, the pros appear to outweigh the cons. The strongest selling point for many is that the fake turf can withstand continuous abuse and still look as fresh as an artificial daisy. With the growth of girls' sports with Title IX, the federal law that guarantees females equal access to sports in federally funded institutions, and the growing popularity of sports such as soccer and lacrosse, town and school fields are being scheduled beyond the capacity of anything that photosynthesizes for a living. Before Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes installed artificial turf four years ago, the school limited its grass field to 10 to 15 football and soccer games a year to try to keep it in good shape, said Superintendent Paul Saxton. Now, the field is frequently used for a punishing nine periods of physical education a day, followed by school and community teams.

The surface doesn't look any worse for the wear, Saxton said. What's more, unlike real grass, artificial turf can be played on no matter what the weather. "Before we put it in, it used to be a quagmire around here," said John Puzio, athletic director at Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, one of the first schools in the state to install the newest generation of artificial turf eight years ago. "The slightest bit of rain and we were a mud pot." Bergen Catholic tried many different solutions such as sodding and reseeding, but nothing worked. With artificial turf, Puzio said, drainage is so good that games go on even during downpours.

Long-term benefit

All that extra field time comes at a cost, however. Lodi expects it will cost $1.1 million to install the turf for a soccer and football field in Memorial Park. Park Ridge expects to pay about $800,000 for a soccer field, which also will be used for softball. Last month, Ridgewood voters rejected a proposal to spend $650,000 to install synthetic turf at the high school.

Synthetics typically cost about twice as much as real grass at first, according to Edgewater Councilman David Jordan, who is looking into whether the borough should go with natural grass or synthetic when it renovates Veterans Field. Over the long term, though, artificial turf is believed to be much less expensive to maintain than grass, since it doesn't need to be mowed, fertilized or treated with pesticides.

Many brands of the turf come with eight-year warranties. Dan Kurpick, director of buildings and grounds for Bergen Catholic, said that a couple of times a season, his crew sweeps and aerates the field to pick up leaves and garbage and loosen up the grass when it becomes matted down. "It really is next to no maintenance," Kurpick said.

Those who remember the old days of AstroTurf® may wonder about the safety of playing on a synthetic surface. "The old AstroTurf® used to be almost like a flat carpet over cement," said Greg Butler, the physical education supervisor at Northern Valley Demarest, who played on AstroTurf® as a baseball player at Seton Hall University. "If you threw a ball down, it would bounce 10 feet up in the air." But the latest generation of turf bears little resemblance to its predecessors.

Known as in-fill systems, the turfs typically consist of thick fields of artificial grass (think shag carpet) filled in with rubber and sometimes sand for cushioning. "We play right on top of it in baseball," said Joe Lennon, athletic director at DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne. "We slide right on it. It's the greatest thing." The anecdotal evidence is encouraging.

Tom Krause, president of the Parent Athletic Council at Indian Hills High School in Oakland, said he didn't think artificial turf caused any more injuries than natural grass. While you might get some rug burn if you fall on the artificial turf, he said, you might chip your bone if you hit a rock in grass- and many of the new turfs are coated to prevent rug burn.

Michael C. Meyers, who directs the Human Performance Research Laboratory at West Texas A&M University and specializes in orthopedic research, was co-author of a report published last year in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. He studied eight high school football teams over five seasons and found that artificial turf yielded different types of injuries from natural grass - fewer knee injuries and concussions, but more muscle injuries, such as strains. So far, athletes seem to be embracing the new generation of artificial turf.

Harrison Weiss, a sophomore at Northern Valley Demarest and a quarterback on the football team, said that he runs faster on the turf and that it gives better traction, especially in the rain. Kaelyn Krause, a senior at Indian Hills High who is captain of the girls' lacrosse and soccer teams and daughter of Tom Krause, said synthetic turf is easier to play soccer on because there are no ditches or rocks for the balls to hit and change directions. "I like the turf better," Krause said. "It's easier. I've gotten used to it over the years."

FieldTurf, which dominates the artificial turf market, is bullish on the future. Perry DiPiazza, director of sales for FieldTurf for the tri-state region, estimates that of the 105 or so artificial turf fields in New Jersey, 97 are FieldTurfs. "I would say that we just scratched the surface," DiPiazza said. Of course, some say the fake stuff just isn't the same. Indian Hills' Tom Krause said that even though he sees the practical reasons for using artificial turf, he sometimes misses watching football games on the real thing. "You'd like to see them playing in the mud, like the old Chicago Bears," Krause said.

Jennifer Hou, a participant in The Record's annual Minorities Journalism Workshop, contributed to this article.