No serious threat seen in tests on 'lead' turf

Thursday, June 05, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNEJOURNAL STAFF WRITER

New Jersey Health Department officials say lead found in artificial turf at three athletic fields - including two in Hudson County - can be absorbed by humans, but isn't a serious threat to athletes who use the fields.

State epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz said the lead levels in the fields are not high enough to cause poisoning to people who play on the them.

Three New Jersey fields - Cochrane Stadium at Caven Point in Jersey City, Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken and the College of New Jersey's Lions Stadium Field in Ewing - were closed in April after tests showed elevated lead levels in their AstroTurf.

Hoboken has already awarded a contract to replace its field and Jersey City officials say their turf will be replaced in the summer.
Michael Dennis, chairman and president of GeneralSports Venue, the company that makes AstroTurf in the United States, declared AstroTurf a completely safe synthetic material last month.

The lead in AstroTurf is "extremely low" and "encapsulated" in the fibers, so someone would have to eat the turf for lead to enter the body, Dennis said.

And even if someone ate it, a child weighing 50 pounds would have to eat 23 pounds of artificial turf to reach dangerous levels, said James Coughlin, one of GVS' scientific consultants.
Hoboken Mayor David Roberts took no chances and had Sinatra field replaced.

"There are too many things in life that parents have to worry about - one of those things is not going to be the Sinatra Park soccer field," Roberts has said.