Q3: Should we use Artificial Turf?

Question 3 will read: If Question 2 is approved, do you favor the installation of an artificial turf surface at the competition performance field at the Gray-New Gloucester High School (the “Turf Project”), and authorizing the School Board of Maine School Administrative District No. 15 (the “District”) to issue additional bonds or notes in an amount not to exceed $702,735 to finance the Turf Project?

• Right now, our athletes have to wait in the spring for the fields to be ready before they get out on them to practice. You will often see softball, lacrosse, baseball, and other teams practicing in the parking lots. This would allow them to get out on the fields as soon as it's warm enough.

• We have more teams and practices than we have available space. Each field can only take so many hours of use before it fails. Artificial turf allows for almost double the amount of use (see cost and use analysis slides below). While the hard cost for turf is more, if you look at dollar-per-hour-played, it's more economical. 

• The Maine Principal's Association has decided that no neutral site games (ie., conference championships, state championships) can be played on natural turf, going forward. Without artificial turf, our teams are barred from hosting premier events on our campus and are at a disadvantage. 

• Many of the schools we compete against are on artificial turf already; without an artificial turf space to practice on, our teams find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. (See local schools with turf fields, below.) 

• Most basically, it costs an extra $703k.

• There are concerns in some quarters that artificial turf leads to increased injury risk. Here is an article from Mass General Hospital that looks at this concern. Here is another article from the National Center for Health Research. 

• There are concerns in some quarters about the health risks of the chemicals used in the creation of the artificial turf, specifically regarding PFAS. You can read research here on PFAS in artificial turf from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Here's another piece from the Center for Environmental Health. The school district is investigating turf that does not contain PFAS, but we are still investigating just how available that is. If we can get PFAS-free turf, we will do it. 

• Further, the state of Maine has passed LD 1503, which bans the use of PFAS in many products. You can see that they are still in rule-making mode on this by clicking here. However, at the moment, sale of artificial turf containing PFAS is banned after January 1, 2029. We would come in under that deadline, but that doesn't mean PFAS has gotten any safer in the meantime. 

• The artificial turf will need to be replaced after somewhere between 10 and 15 years. This will require another spend at some time in the future. You can see the cost-analysis above that shows it is definitely more expensive in hard dollars to install and maintain artificial turf, while less expensive in a cost-per-hour-played analysis.