Amid a battle over turf plans for FDR Park, experts say claims of PFAS-free fake grass are misleading

A blue sign, draped across a perimeter of cyclone fencing, greets anyone who happens by Broad Street and Pattison Avenue with a cheerful message: “Welcome to your new FDR Park.”

Plastered next to the sign are renderings of proposed renovations, gauzy images of green spaces and happy visitors. The city’s $250 million vision for the South Philadelphia park still calls for some of that green to be fake: a dozen multi-purpose playing fields, and four baseball and softball fields, all of which are expected to be outfitted with artificial turf.

In March, 11 residents sued the city in Orphans’ Court, and sought a preliminary injunction to bring work on the park’s makeover to a halt. Among the residents’ concerns was the likelihood that the turf fields would contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — so-called forever chemicals that have been linked to multiple types of cancer, and are found in a range of everyday items, including turf and firefighters’ protective equipment.

Lawyers for the city, in a response filed in court in April, wrote that three companies that are in the running to provide the turf for FDR Park have “provided written guarantees that their products do not contain PFAs.”

The Inquirer contacted the three companies that the city is considering — FieldTurf, Shaw Sports Turf, and Sprinturf — and asked whether each would provide samples of its turf.

The newspaper wanted to test samples of the companies’ turf for PFAS. None of the three companies responded.

But in its court filing, the city included a Shaw Industries lab report, which purportedly showed that no PFAS were detected in its product.

The Inquirer shared that report with two experts on forever chemicals: Graham Peaslee, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame, and Kyla Bennett, a former EPA official who now directs science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Both said the Shaw Industries report was misleading; the turf still likely contains PFAS.

Bennett explained that such reports typically employ “a trick” that turf manufacturers have relied upon for years: measuring PFAS in their product at a threshold of parts per billion, instead of parts per trillion — the regulatory limit the EPA uses for PFAS in drinking water.

“If tested properly,” Bennett said, “they would find PFAS in the parts per trillion range.”

“In all three of those brands, we find PFAS over and over and over again. So I don’t know why they’re saying it’s PFAS-free. It’s not.”

The city is not conducting its own tests of FieldTurf’s, Shaw Sports Turf’s, and Sprinturf’s products, nor has it obtained samples of the companies’ turf, Charlotte Merrick, a spokesperson for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, wrote in an email to The Inquirer.

Asked what testing threshold would be used on turf considered for FDR Park, Merrick didn’t specify; instead, she said that the city “would not install turf which contains intentionally added PFAS chemicals.”

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Researchers at the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute, an independent state agency, have found that PFAS are used during the manufacturing process itself to prevent artificial turf from sticking to equipment that gives the fake blades of grass their shape.

Merrick was asked whether the city would install at FDR turf that is found to have PFAS above testing thresholds. She responded without addressing the specifics of the question: “We are committed to ensuring that our parks and rec centers are safe and healthy places for children and families to play.”

The city’s seeming commitment to new turf fields comes at a time when many local and state governments are seeking to prohibit the product in public spaces.

Los Angeles’ City Council is exploring a citywide ban of turf fields, citing concerns about PFAS leaching into groundwater. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration has said the city has a “preference for grass playing surfaces” instead of turf. And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed legislation to ban sales of turf that contains PFAS by the end of 2024.

In June, Pennsylvania legislators introduced a bill that would ban PFAS in a variety of products, including non-stick pans, cosmetics, food packaging — and artificial turf.

Merrick said the city is reviewing the state bill.

“I would like to think that, if presented with new evidence that calls the previous turf plan into question, that the city would be flexible and open-minded,” said Lauren Cristella, the president of the Committee of Seventy, the nonpartisan good-government group.

“Whatever money has been sunk into this process, it will be nothing compared to the potential cost of having to rip up the fields if they’re found to be harmful.”

Concerns about turf fields in Philadelphia reach beyond FDR Park.

Two miles from FDR, at Third and Shunk Streets, sits the Lawrence E. Murphy Recreation Center. A $7.5 million renovation of the rec center, part of the city’s Rebuild program — which looks to improve community facilities — included a new turf playing field for baseball games and soccer matches.

Sprinturf, the manufacturer of the turf installed at Murphy Recreation, had assured the city that the fake grass was PFAS-free, and included a lab report to back up its claim.

In February, The Inquirer reported that three experts, including Bennett and Peaslee, had reviewed the report and determined that it was misleading.

Lloyd Kaufman, a vice president and analytical chemist at RTI Laboratories — the Michigan company that performed the lab test for Sprinturf — acknowledged at the time to The Inquirer that the results didn’t guarantee that the turf was PFAS-free.

Kaufman said that he “cringes” whenever someone claims that a current turf product is “PFAS-free.” (Sprinturf’s CEO did not comment for that article.)

Merrick said the city has hired Verdantas, an environmental consulting firm, to “coordinate testing” of Murphy Recreation’s turf, and would share the results.

Melanie Taylor, president and CEO of the Synthetic Turf Council, a national organization that represents manufacturers, builders, and infill material suppliers, has said that fake grass is safe.

But in a letter to California legislators last year, she disclosed that the industry would need several years to develop PFAS-free turf.

Rich Garella is among the residents who have sued the city over the FDR renovation project. The group’s attorney, Samuel Stretton, has argued that the ongoing construction violates the Public Trust Doctrine, which gives residents in the state a right to pure water and “preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic value of the environment.”

In May, Common Pleas Court Judge Sheila Wards-Skipper declined to hear the case.

Chief among the group’s concerns are the turf fields, which are slated to be built on 42 acres of a former golf course, an area that was reclaimed by nature during the pandemic and nicknamed “the meadows” by visitors who hiked its trails.

“The city is clearly not ignorant of the fact that all turf has PFAS,” Garella said. “It’s unlikely that there will be turf that’s PFAS-free. But something is making them want to put this in, and clear the park to do it. That’s the mystery of this whole thing.”

The nonprofit Fairmount Park Conservancy, which helped raise $100 million for the FDR renovations, has written on its website that the city’s youth sports community “overwhelmingly” expressed a desire for “performance turf fields.”

Natural grass fields, the conservancy contends, can’t be played on as often as turf, and have their own “significant costs and consequences,” such as lawnmowers, irrigation, and herbicides.

“The fields at FDR Park will not use the turf products of the past, which have been shown to pollute their environment,” Maura McCarthy, the conservancy’s CEO, told The Inquirer earlier this year.

Government regulation of PFAS has evolved slowly.

For years, researchers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies have linked the chemicals — which have been found in drinking water across the United States — to testicular and kidney cancer, asthma, thyroid disease, and decreased immunity to fight infections.

But it wasn’t until earlier this year, in April, that the EPA issued its first-ever legally enforceable drinking water standard to protect communities from PFAS.

“The final rule will reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses,” the agency stated at the time.

Peaslee, of Notre Dame, explained that PFAS in artificial turf “wash off at parts per trillion level” into run-off, and can filter into local water supplies. “That’s the concern on a global scale,” he said.

Stephanie Wein, a water and conservation advocate for PennEnvironment, a statewide advocacy group, said the proposed FDR fields would be in a floodplain that leads to the Delaware River, a drinking water source for 15 million people.

“We should have absolute certainty that these fields that our kids are going out to play on don’t contain these chemicals that have long-term effects, even if it’s at a lower level of exposure,” Wein said.

“I don’t want to assume the [turf] industry will act in our best interests on its own. Our elected leaders owe Philadelphians a stronger degree of scrutiny when they’re thinking about how they’re going to manage this land.”

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Last year, scientists in Egypt found that “there is a potential for cancer risk” for children, aged 3 to 15, who played on artificial turf, due to volatile compounds that are emitted from the plastic grass and capable of being inhaled.

The outcome of the November presidential election could impact the future of PFAS regulation, and the artificial turf industry.

The EPA is among the government agencies targeted for significant change in Project 2025, a 900-page list of policy proposals that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and more than 100 other groups would like to see adopted if Donald Trump is again elected president.

Among its recommendations for the EPA: “revisiting the agency’s designation of PFAS as ‘hazardous substances.’”

In February, Federal Election Commission records show, a Trump super PAC — Make America Great Again Inc. — received a $37,500 donation from a South Carolina man, Rom Reddy.

A few weeks later, he donated a vastly larger sum: $902,000.

In the records, Reddy listed himself the CEO of Sprinturf, one of the three companies vying to install its carpet in FDR Park.