To the Editor:
I just finished reading the literature the Field Fund has presented from the UMass Lowell Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI), at http://bit.ly/turfquestions.
Once again, TURI expressed concerns but no scientific facts to support their fears. Their findings, listed on page 3, stated, “Limited studies have not shown an elevated health risk from playing on fields with tire crumb, but the existing studies do not comprehensively evaluate the concerns about health risks from exposure to tire crumb.”
In other words, the independent studies conducted by the states of California, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and the country of Norway that have found no health concerns for athletes playing on synthetic turf fields are not pertinent because “we may still discover a problem.”
The other thing of note was that UMass Lowell installed two synthetic turf fields in 2013, and just finished another two synthetic turf fields in 2017. It appears they were not too concerned with their own department’s opinion of synthetic turf being harmful to their students.
Terry Donahue
Edgartown
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