The environmental and human health impacts of synthetic turf, specifically that with crumb rubber infill, have been a major concern in the eyes of the public for years. Institutions such as the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have conducted studies regarding the matter and have concluded that the volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other potentially toxic compounds found in crumb rubber have little to no significant impact on human health. The concentrations of these metals and compounds are below health regulations and are too low to cause damage to our bodies. However, while these compounds may not be harmful to humans, smaller organisms in contact with crumb rubber infill synthetic turf fields may be affected by the compounds discovered. Planarians were used as the dependent variable in this toxicity study as they are cost effective, easy to take care of, fall within the fair's guidelines regarding living organisms, and exhibit distinct behavioral responses to psychoactive substances. If the compounds in crumb rubber infill were toxic to planarians, then planaria of the genus/species Dugesia dorotocephala that were exposed to higher concentrations of crumb rubber infill would experience an increase in mortality and a decrease in motility. Using a simplified version of EPA's Method 1312 Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure (SPLP), crumb rubber was mixed with an acid rain treatment to simulate potential runoff from the turf fields. Planarians were exposed to the solution for two weeks while mortality and motility were observed. Control groups used throughout experimentation included dishes with acid rain treatment before and after pH adjustment and spring water. Varying levels of phenol and zinc, two volatiles, were found in previous analyses of the metals contained in crumb rubber infill and were used in preliminaries to attempt to detect a pattern

of physical or behavioral change aligning with the crumb rubber dishes during experimentation. While phenol seemed to have no effect on the planarians regardless of its concentration in spring water, the flatworms exposed to zinc experienced odd behavioral and physical changes such as curling into balls, convulsing, and lines of growths on dead planarians' bodies. The flatworms exposed to crumb rubber died before the end of the experiment or developed lesions and consequently perished. While a correlation between the zinc and crumb rubber lesions has not been made, future studies would include analyzing samples of the diseased cells and performing the SPLP on the crumb rubber used in the experiment to determine the specific causation of the lesions.