Welcome to the Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 meeting of the Arlington Artificiator Study Committee. We're meeting virtually and tonight we have some great guest speakers, but we still have to follow our agendas, a couple of preliminary items, including acceptance meeting minutes from our last meeting, which was two weeks ago. Jim, do you want to do the roll call first? Yes, sorry. Okay, that's okay. So, Mike, I do not see Mike just yet. Mike's away. Mike's away, okay. Absolutely. Okay, and then Joe, Barr. Yep. Here. Leslie. Here. Jill. Here. Marvin. Here. Welcome back. Natasha here. And Jim. Here. Joe Conley. Here. And Claire. I'm here. Perfect. Okay. So, I hope everyone's had a chance to look at the minutes from our last meeting, which was two weeks ago, set up with the agenda. If you haven't, take a few seconds to look at it now. And if someone is comfortable with it, I would entertain a motion. Motion to approve the minutes. Second. Okay. Motion. It's been a motion and seconded. So, I'll go ahead. I'll call the roll, please. Okay. That was Jill who seconded. Okay. So, Mike is absent. Joe Barr. Yes. Okay. Leslie. Yes. Jill. Yes. Marvin. Yes. Natasha. Yes. Jim. Yes. Perfect. Okay. The meeting minutes passed. Great. So, Natasha, do you want to just give us a quick summary of correspondence received? Sure. So, we received a couple of emails. One was from Susan Chapnick and it had to do with high school athletic injury rates, artificial turf versus natural turf. And I believe this was from 2001, sorry, 2001, 2021. So, that was forwarded on to us. And then a second email from Susan Chapnick from Mount St. Sinide. And this was the School of Medicine. I'm sorry. I don't have the title of the document there, but that was sent on. Oh, no. You know what it is? It's a letter to town meeting from April last year. So, that was in there. And then our third email was from Mike Guildsgame from our Archmage here. And it was in regards to the Mass General Brigham's turf versus turf study, I'm sorry, a report from Mass General Brigham's. And that's it. So, yes. I want to thank the people who submitted these items. I always enjoy reading them and always get something out of them. So, thank you. So, Natasha, unless you have anything else, I think I'll jump into the next main item on the agenda. Yep, that would be great. So, tonight is our first night with some guest speakers. It will not be our last night. And I'll explain more about that later. But tonight we have two speakers that I think were very enlightening for us. One who will sort of address some issues more from the safety perspective and some of the questions the safety working groups have been trying to work through. The other more from the environmental perspective and some of the issues that the environmental and to some degree the health group has been trying to work through. So, without further ado, I'll have Joe introduce our first speaker of the night, Samantha Jones, who Joe reached out to. And we were very happy, was able to get the speaker to come and speak to us tonight. So, Joe, I'll let you take it from here. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Joe. So, yeah, our safety commission, obviously, we're talking a lot about the comparisons between player safety, between artificial turf and natural grass. And the more we read, the more we came up with you know, there were certainly pristine artificial grass fields. And then there were Arlington fields.  You might remember we talked about this a few weeks back. And we said, well, there really is no, you know, database for the MIA keeps regarding, you know, injuries with comparable to artificial turf versus turf, natural turf, sorry. And what we said, maybe we could reach out to the athletic director and the athletic training staff to see if they could speak to what they were seeing as the ones that are really on the fields with the athletes. And they have both artificial turf fields, and they play on natural grass fields. And just really get their take on, I guess, this would be Samantha's take on what she's seeing out there, what injuries may be more prone to the artificial turf at the high school, and what injuries might be she's seeing at some of the grass fields such as Thorn Dyke in Magnolia. And then maybe answer any questions we might have. So I've not talked to Samantha, I have no idea where this is going to fall. But I thought, you know, it would be good to hear right from an Arlington source. So with that said, Samantha, if you hope you can hear me, if you could take it from there. Yes, sorry. My connection might not be great because I'm sitting in the high school and I am in the old building, so I don't have the greatest connection. So can everyone hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Okay, awesome. So thank you all for having me. I really appreciate it. Joe, thank you for the introduction. So like Joe said, for those who don't know, I'm Sam Jones. I'm the athletic trainer at the high school. I do work with all the athletes that we have here. So currently in our winter season, we have about 489 students. And then in the fall, we had like a record breaking number of like 540. So we had a lot of kids come in through and out through the athletic training room. So I do see daily injuries, it depends if it's on the turf or on the grass, just based on where those kids are practicing. But in my experience, at least from what I've seen at Arlington, the injury rate is about the same. If I had to put it down to grass versus turf, I see pretty much the same things based on where those kids are practicing. Most commonly, it's ankles and knees. And that's really what I've seen a bunch of, especially this fall. Mainly in our soccer programs is where I would say this is the most pertinent and where you'll see the most grass versus turf just because those are the teams that are mainly utilizing those fields. That's great. Is there any difference between male and female and just yours? There can be. So yeah. So in female athletes, you typically, well, I've typically seen, and as research shows, you see more knee injuries, such as a torn ACL, but that has more to do with the different body mechanics of males versus females. So females have wider hips. Therefore, you're more likely to tear an ACL just based off of that. And also the hormones that your body naturally produces. So female athletes are more likely to tear an ACL based on the amount of estrogen in their system compared to males. So that's something to also take into account.  They're more likely to tear it. It's a lot to do with basic body mechanics as well. Could I ask a question? I was just wondering in terms of playing games and practice, do the teams play and practice on turf and grass? Or is it, you know, they play mostly on turf and practice mostly on grass? Or is it kind of a mix? So that's a great question. So mainly our varsity level sports all play on turf. That's something that with the turf schedule, since we do only have one turf field at the moment, we try and make it so that our varsity teams can stay consistently on that turf field. And then our freshman and G teams typically are outsourced to those grass fields. So they're constantly staying there. There's I think maybe one occasion where a JV team played on our turf field right behind my school. But mainly those teams are staying at those fields that they're at. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. Any other questions for Sam? I know this is an opportunity to get both the perspective of someone who has seen athletes on both types of turf, but also can give you an Arlington perspective of what she's seen here. So Sam, we had some questions about heat and yes, because we're heat is actually in the health group versus the safety group. But we were wondering, is there MIA training specific to heat? And what is, you know, what kind of training do coaches that play outdoors go through? Yes. So in accordance to MIA policy, we have a heat modification policy. So I have a specific thermometer I use. It's called a wet bulb thermometer. It takes into account the heat index, the humidity, the type of surface that you're on. And it gives you a reading based off of that. And so the MIA has created this breakdown of certain degrees and based on how hot it is, each team is restricted based on those levels of heat per se. So I go out, it's normally during the tryout season. So like August, September, when it's a little bit warmer, I go out about an hour before the first practice is supposed to begin. And I'll start taking that wet bulb temperature and we'll restrict practices based on that. And all of our coaches are versed in this. We go over it before the season begins. So there's not specifically a training, I would say. But we do review it. The practices are heavily restricted based on the heat just because, again, Arlington is a big town and I can only be in one place at once. So just making sure that I'm taking that wet bulb temperature like I drive to Thorndike, I'll take it before the GBC practices there, make sure they're allowed to and things like that. So Sam, just to clarify, you're taking that temperature on both the grass and the turf fields? Yes, I take it on both. And it's typically higher on the turf field based on how the turf field absorbs and reflects heat. So therefore, most of our grass teams, so for example, like this past tryout season in August, our JV soccer teams were allowed to practice for about 30 minutes longer than some of our varsity teams, just based on the heat waves on the turf. But that's something that you can work around. How we would work around, I'd recommend that is your training earlier in the morning, if it's like 6 a.m. So the temperature isn't as hot or you're going later at night, like 8 p.m., where it's not as hot outside. Sam, I wonder, I mean, I'm asking you to look back a little bit. Sorry, I'm seeing questions in the chat. I see these, I'm trying to catch up. Sam, what is the heat differential? I'm not asking you to be exact, but if you took a heat from Thorndike to then the turf, are you finding a 20-degree difference or 30-degree difference? Typically, it's about, I would say, about a 10-degree difference if the turf can be about 10 degrees warmer, especially when it's a higher humidity outside. It just depends. It's also like the breeze, I will say, Pierce Field has a great, it is basically a wind tunnel. So that does decrease the temperature as well, like having the breeze helps out and things like that. But it's typically around, I'd say, a 7- to 10-degree difference is how I would base off of. Great. Thanks, Sam. Yeah. And you said August during the tryouts, are you seeing more of these going into, later in the year or earlier in the year, in the June or September time frames? Or is it really limited? So in regards to heat injuries, yes, I'm seeing those more mainly than two weeks of preseason, maybe the first couple weeks of September. But once the temperature dips down, it stays there and knock on wood. We've had no crazy heat injuries in Arlington. We've done pretty well of making sure things are restricted and that athletes are properly hydrated. There's shade available for them. We have cooling towels. We constantly have ice for them if needed. But again, it's normally those first two weeks in August and then maybe the two weeks in spring. I rarely have to worry about it in May and June just because it depends on how long teams make it into the tournament season for our spring teams. But if anything, maybe the last two weeks in May, I'm worried about it a little bit more. But otherwise, it's mainly those first couple weeks of the fall season. Hi. Is there any kind of formal training for either coaches or for kids on, I guess, you know, recognition of signs and symptoms of heat strain? Yes. So specifically for us at Arlington, we send this out every year and it's available on our athletics website. It's in our emergency action plan. We have specific signs and symptoms followed by the MIA's heat modification policy of what breaking down like heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and heat cramps look like just so that you know the difference and how to anticipate them. And I also do review it every season with coaches. So before the fall season, we have a big coach and staff meeting. I review it with them. I review it with all the players before every tryout season as well. We always meet before tryouts. And then I also do the same thing with cold weather exposure for our outdoor winter athletes and some of our spring athletes, such as the lacrosse teams. Thank you. Susan, I'm seeing your questions in the chat. I'm sorry, I'll get to them. No, I'm sorry, Paul. You don't have to answer the questions in the chat. You can if you want to, but you don't. Those aren't from committee members. So if you want to weigh in, that's your choice. But you know, you don't have to. Okay. Okay. I'll give you a minute if you want to. I mean, certainly, but if not, we can ask. Yeah, no, I definitely... No, that's fine. I can answer the question about the injuries on grass and turf fields about the same. As of right now in the fall when I saw the turf fields and grass fields, it was about the same, I would say. I had about a steady number of kids coming in from freshman and JD teams, two varsity teams. Some injuries are more significant than others. It just depended, again, on multiple different factors. I wouldn't say the surface was the main factor in those injuries. A lot of it had to do with the athlete's biomechanics. How much muscle mass do they have prior to that injury? How much did they... What was their athletic ability like? What was the situation they were playing in? In all things like that. And then the severity, I would say, is probably the same. The most severe grass injury we had this fall would be a JD boy soccer player. He had a tibial plateau fracture, but that was because someone stepped on his foot and he got stuck underneath someone. So I wouldn't say that was more the surface. And then we had a couple ACL tears on the turf this year, but again, both were female athletes. It's, again, sadly more common than female athletes. So there's a lot of factors that we get into those. You know, Sam, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but looking at various... And I will say, Jill, we've been looking into heat as well. So Natasha and I have talked. There's our groups. There'll probably be some overlap on the heat question, but looking at heat, I believe the MIA has... I'm great to their guidelines. They're not hard and fast rules, but compared to some other communities and other parts of the country where it actually runs much hotter than Arlington, they have some pretty strict guidelines about temperature. If I'm not mistaken, I think they recommend no use of a field. If the outdoor temperature goes above 86.1 degrees Fahrenheit, is that correct? Yes, it is. So it's based on that 86.1 is actually reversed on that wet bulb thermometer that I was mentioning earlier. So 86.1 on that thermometer is about equivalent to 100 degrees Fahrenheit normally. So that's within to account the heat index, the humidity, the surface you're on. So yes, it relatively does look low, but in reality, it's a little bit, it's much harder than you would think. Yeah. So that's a wet bulb reading at 86.1. Yes, that is with a wet bulb reading that has gone in normal Fahrenheit. Yes. That might explain it because I was looking at like Montgomery County, Maryland, and maybe there was just an outdoor temperature. So actually that would be more in line then. Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, everyone, a lot of schools, oh god, I'm sorry. Oh no, I was just going to say you had said that coaches get training. How about the athletes themselves? Is there any type of training around, you know, what they should, how they should prepare themselves, what they should look for in temperature or, you know, issues that come up throughout the season? So there's technically no, I would say formalized training. However, I definitely send out a lot of things to athletes in their team specifically. So I work very closely with a lot of the team captains. I send a lot of prior to tryouts. Like this is how much you should be hydrating.  You should have water with you and things like that. I definitely, there's no formalized training for them to click on, but I do take it upon myself to work with those captains just so that everyone's nice and prepared when we go into the season because heat stroke, the thing about it is it can happen really fast and heat injuries are very scary when they happen. So the best I can do to prevent them, that is the number one thing of why I'm there is injury prevention. So I take it upon myself to make sure that athletes are fully prepared before we step on that field. Thanks. Yeah, of course. Is there any kind of a climatization schedule for kids when they're coming on at like say, you know, for tryouts, you know, in that August period or is it mostly that you're just kind of trying to schedule them during cooler parts of the day? It's a little bit of both. So we do. So for football, for example, just because they have to get used to playing in pads in the heat, there is a five-day acclimatization period for them. That's per MIA regulation. So they start that Friday before everybody else in August and they're no pads the first day. They're only out there for an hour and then we slowly increase them. So it's every the first three days are no pads for an hour, then it's uppers for an hour and a half, uppers again for an hour and a half. And then on the fourth day, they can finally go full pads, but they can only be outside for an hour.  Everyone else just because they don't have as heavy as equipment that they don't necessarily have to acclimate. However, I do recommend to the coaches that you're not trying, if we can work in that six a.m. to 11 a.m. since they don't have school those first couple weeks a little bit easier than trying to schedule trials from noon to three o'clock when the sun's at its strongest. So we do our best to work around it, but just based on availability of space that doesn't always happen. So those teams in the middle of the day, if they are, we try and prevent it from being football and someone who doesn't necessarily have as heavy as equipment. Okay, thank you. Just because I know we have another speaker tonight. Maybe we'll do a last call for questions for Sam. Anyone? Well, seeing none, Sam, I want to say thank you. It's very helpful to get this perspective. And your experience can be a guide for us as we think through these issues. I'll simply add that having read a fair number of studies now, many of them peer reviewed about injuries of turf versus natural grass. I think your experience isn't pretty close to what I've seen in the studies. There's some variation sometimes depending upon particular type of injury. But in general, sometimes turf is better. Sometimes grass is better. It actually gets closer to an equivalent, see, than one would think before you read these studies. So your real world experience, I think is pretty close to what I've seen in the studies too. So it's very helpful to hear that. Of course, if you have any more questions, please let me know. Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that. Thank you, Sam. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So moving on, we have our second speaker tonight. We're doing pretty well time wise, I think at this point. And I think Mike was originally going to introduce her, but, Joe, I don't know if you want to. Yeah, I said we were coming. Yeah, I was on deck for that. Okay, I'll hand it off to you then. Great. So we're joined by Dr. Helen Pointon from UMass Boston. She's a full professor in the School of Environment at UMass Boston. And her research, oops, I lost my page where I had my intro information for her. Sorry. So she, like I said, she's a professor at UMass Boston. She served on the Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Act Scientific Advisory Board. And her research focuses on the toxic effects of metals and emerging pollutants on aquatic life. So I think she's here to talk to us sort of moving beyond the sort of direct impacts on the immediate direct impacts on people, but sort of the larger impacts on the environment and of the artificial surf and some of the chemicals that are found within them. And she has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Temple University and a PhD from University of California at Berkeley in Molecular and Biochemical Nutrition. She also did a postdoc at US EPA, so I think she brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and we're glad that Mike was able to get in touch with her and have her present or talk with us tonight. I think she has some slides to share, right? And that may help answer some of the questions that were posed in advance, but again, as with with the previous speaker, I think the idea is to make this kind of an interactive discussion. So Dr. Pointon, thank you very much for joining us and I'll turn it over to you. Dr. Pointon, I just made you a co-host so you can go ahead and share your screen if you'd like. Oh, okay, great. Thank you. Thanks everyone for the invitation to talk. And yeah, so I'm a professor of ecotoxicology. I've studied lots of different types of pollutants. I can't say I've ever done any studies specifically on artificial turf. So a lot of what I'm drawing on is peer-reviewed literature and some of it I'm sure that you've seen. It sounds like you're already a pretty well educated group on on this topic. So you know, but hopefully I can help to answer questions that you have about some of these studies to better understand what what they mean. So I'll just I'll share this. So you see the presentation? Okay, okay, great. So I'll just move on to so I'm going to just quickly kind of give an overview of some of the principles of my research program at UMass Boston. Very quickly, what is artificial turf? Because most of us know what this is. And then I'll go over some of the questions that Mike sent me ahead of time that the committee had. So one, since I was in graduate school, I really took this this effects based approach to looking at environmental effects of contaminants. And the idea is that you can't just measure the the chemicals that are out in the environment, you really need to do some type of bio assays that look at how those chemicals are reacting with organisms that live in the natural environment to understand the toxicity. And I've come up against lots of lots of interesting groups in in risk assessment. It's kind of the primary focus is on just going out and measuring contaminants. And it doesn't it gives you a really limited picture of what is going on in my experience. I try to do research that matters to ecosystems and to people. And whenever possible, try to engage communities in a participatory manner and acknowledge the fact that they bring unique expertise to the table. And if you don't take advantage of that, then you're you're really going to lose out in your your research. So artificial turf has these three main components where we could potentially get some risk from them. So first is the artificial turf fragments, the blades of grass. And these are usually made out of polyethylene plastic or nylon. And we also know that PFOS has been detected in these these blades of grass. There's the infill that kind of, I guess, sort of access soil in this artificial turf system. And it's been kind of a one component that was being used for a long time. It was thought of kind of like a win win scenario, we can recycle these tires, and we can use them for a purpose is this tire chrome. And there's a lot of issues with that, but I think that you've already kind of come across. You can also fill it with other types of rubber, new synthetically made rubble particles are sometimes used, acrylic coated sand. And most recently, I've seen plant based materials being proposed. And then there is the the backing at the very bottom that everything is attached to. And that's either a polyester or a polyurethane type of plastic that's used for that. So one thing that we have to consider is that these artificial turf fields are existing out in the weather. And different weather conditions, exposure to lots of sun, as well as exposure to storms, causes fragments to come off. So these m a t f, which are fragments from the the turf fragments, or the grass, and then m r p s, which are rubber based particles. And these are more, these are usually put into like the micro plastics type of range, which is under under five millimeters in size, but can be much, much smaller than that. And so one of the questions was what are the most important chemicals for potential impacts to the environment? Looking at the studies on artificial turf fields, it seems like these two legacy contaminants that have been studied for dedicates metals and poly aromatic hydrocarbons are the most commonly detected chemicals in the leachate from the these turf fields. The two primary metals of concern are lead and zinc. Zinc is not as much of a problem for human health, but it's very toxic to aquatic life, especially crustaceans, which are kind of at the base of the the food chain. And then par poly aromatic hydrocarbons are usually associated with like burning fossil fuels. But apparently, there's really high concentrations of them in both the blades of grass, as well as some of the different types of infill. And then PFAS, which are, you know, been given the name forever chemicals, they have one of the strongest bonds in the universe, this carbon fluorine bond. That's very, very hard to break. There's over 5000 different versions of this chemical. Only a fraction of them have been studied. About six of them are monitored in Massachusetts drinking water. And they have a lot of really detrimental effects to humans as well as wildlife. So if you see developmental toxicity and endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity in humans, you can be sure that those same kinds of effects are being experienced by other vertebrates in the ecosystem, such as fish, if we're talking about the aquatic ecosystem. I when I talk about these chemicals to my students, I call them the lead of our generation. Lead was banned the year I was born in gasoline. And you know, now we have this, these PFAS chemicals. Plasticizers, these include phthalates and bisphenol A. In the early 2000s, bisphenol A, there was it was all over the news because of it being found in and water bottles and baby bottles. So these are the kinds of chemicals that we're talking about. These are also endocrine disrupting chemicals. The phthalates primarily come from the plastics. So they're used when making the plastic in the blades of grass. And they can leach out as the grass kind of degrades over time. And you, you don't always know what type of phthalate chemical or whether bisphenol A was used. It's often like proprietary information. This chemical six PPD quinone was discovered in 2021. The science paper made headlines because it was detected to be the primary chemical responsible for fish kills in Washington state. And this was from tire particles. So tire particles were leaching into the streams. And when they did this, a chemical called six PPD, which is intentionally placed into the fires, into the tires, would react with ozone and cause this quinone to form. And that's extremely toxic to fish.  The environmental impacts of them are still kind of under investigation. And, you know, some studies, they show that they can inhibit ingestion and stuff in organisms, really depending on the, the concentration. And other studies show that they can be the carriers for other type of contaminants. So these are kind of like my top six, if I had to give what are the chemicals of concern. And that's not, you know, some of them are specific to the tire chrome infill. And some of them are related to the plastics that are, that are used. So I'll stop here if there are more questions about these types of chemicals. Dr. Point, I'll just jump in first. Have microplastics been banned? I thought they were, I thought there was some federal regulatory issue because they were appearing in like there were soaps and shampoos and stuff. And I thought, thought like five or six years ago, the federal government through regulatory action banned that they're used in manufacturing. So they're, they're banned for specific uses in those like hand soaps and facial soaps. But that's pretty much the only within the United States of the European Union recently banned all intentionally added microplastics and actually included artificial turf and fill in that category. But that's Europe, not the United States. That's Europe. That's right. Anyone else want to jump in? Helen, can you just tell us which one these would be related to the chrome rubber? So the, the, wait, the, oh, so the tire chrome, right? Yeah. So the six PPD quinone is related to the tires. But you'll also find that in any type of infill that is made from rubber, because the six PPD that parent compound is placed in most types of rubber to help with its durability and actually to help keep it from breaking down in the presence of ozone. So the fact that it creates this quinone is, is somewhat intentional to protect the rubber, but then it's released into the environment and extremely toxic to fish. Is that the only one that was primarily the tire related? So the, so some of these other chemicals are found at higher levels in the tire chrome than they are in the blades of grass. But I would say that's probably the only one that would be specific for the infill. Thank you. So it would not be correct to say that the metals are less likely to be in the, the alternative infills? That depends on which ones you're, you're talking. I mean, there's a lot of, seems to be a lot of alternatives out there. And really most of the research has been focused on this, the tire chrome and the other rubber types. Leslie, I think you're in mute. Yeah, sorry, I was muted.  So has, have, are you aware of any research that has been done to look at these more recent organic infills, things like, you know, coconut halls or things that are more of a more natural nature that have been looked at to replace that from rubber that is just, you know, filled with problems as we can see. Do you know of any research or any issues that have surfaced on these natural infills? I spent a good bit of time trying to find research on that. And the, really the only place where I found anything is from the Tory guide on artificial turf, which I'm assuming that you've seen. And they kind of go through a couple of different types of infills and they include those natural ones. But I mean, even there, they're not really saying much. There's some issues with occupational exposure for some of these things, mostly dust inhalation. I mean, my thought is that they probably need to have some type of preservative added to them so that they don't break down really quickly. But I don't know, you know, what that would be and therefore I can't really speak to any of the toxic components that could be in it. Thank you. I think that's some of what we've been finding. Yeah, just not a lot known. Can you talk about just sort of the different exposure routes because most of the stuff that I've been sort of looking at and reading it, it talks about the water being the ingestion, being the biggest concern, especially with the PFAS. And that's how folks are being exposed. But additionally, like, I know that there's PFAS in lots of other materials. So I'm just kind of wondering, you know, do you know, or could you talk a little bit about like what, I guess, maybe different exposure routes might, I mean, I don't think that there's been any levels that have been determined. But I don't know if there's a way to talk about like the comparison of the drinking water versus just in the sort of passive play or, you know, in products and whatnot. I don't know if I'm asking the right sort of question. So it, but it sounds like you're trying to get at human health impacts. And I'm not really prepared to talk about to talk about that. And, you know, I think in a lot of communities, it's still kind of, we're trying to figure out why it's in our drinking water. You know, I live in Sharon, and we had to shut down one of our pumps because of really high levels of PFAS. And that was only after, you know, the state imposed regulations on the level. So how long were we drinking that water before, before they were imposed? And, but trying to trace where PFAS, how PFAS got into drinking water is, you know, that's a really hard question. And it probably came from multiple, multiple sources. But we don't want to be adding more to the environment. And that's already there. Yeah. So, so can I ask a question? So it sounds like if, if there was no drinking water potential exposure, then there's potentially for, again, for humans, you're not prepared to, to, to speak to it. But if there's no, like drinking water exposure, and we have no fish in nearby, say there's no stream nearby, or there's no, you know, brook, where are the, where's the hazard there? Like, where would your concerns lie? All right. Well, this is, this is like complete speculation at this point. But if you were, you know, you had athletes on a field, I would assume they could, it could get on their hands as if they like fall on the artificial grass.  But okay, I understand that. Um, it's like the point and I don't know if you want to keep going. Okay, sure. So this is, this was a study that I found to be really interesting because a lot of the, the manufacturers of these, these turf products will conduct aging studies in the lab. And so they can, they did a comparison between aging studies that were done in the lab and with actual field conditions for these artificial turf. And so on this side, we have from the blades. These are chemicals measured in the blades. And then this is from that rubber infill. And this is the chrome rubber. And they measured higher levels of heavy metals, as well as those poly aromatic hydrocarbons in the, the actual field conditions versus the, the, the aging studies in the lab. And I was really surprised at the high levels of the poly aromatic hydrocarbons in the, the plastic blades. I would have, you know, something I would expect to find in the chrome rubber infill, but to see that it's also leaching from the blades, I thought was, was concerning. And then we, we already kind of knew that there were issues with metals coming from both of these different sources. Okay. So there was a question about the, the effect of heat. And I heard us talking about heat already. And the, you know, if there was runoff from hot, you know, 10 degrees hotter artificial turf fields that could increase the temperature of the water in the surrounding wetlands, the impacts of concern would be increasing the heat above the tolerance of the species that are living there, as well as decreased dissolved oxygen, because warmer water is associated with lower oxygen in the water. But these impacts would be really site specific, it would depend on how much runoff, where it's going, the, how the, the drainage works with the artificial turf that's, that's put in. And, and then, you know, the characteristics of the area that it's, it's flowing into. So I was trying to find some information, like maybe trying to compare the runoff from like a blacktop parking lot versus an artificial turf field. And there's really no one that's done that kind of study. I would suspect that the impact would be less than a parking lot, because there is a drainage system that will supposedly allow some of the water to trickle through and end up in the soil instead of just, you know, running off like a blacktop would. But that was really, it was very hard to find anything on this particular question. So I'm sorry about that. Are there any questions about, about this topic? And then the, you know, we've already been talking about this, the infill, whether it's a concern for the environment. So here's the European Union statement that banned products with intentional microplastics, and they included artificial turf infill in, in that ban. The, the leachate from the chrome rubber infill, there was a recent study that showed that it causes severe developmental toxicity, invertebrates. And it's really generally agreed to be the most harmful component when you're talking about the environmental concerns of artificial turf. And related to these different chemicals, the microplastics, the metals, the six PPD quinone, and the PAHs. And so this is the, that table from the, the Toxic Use Reduction Institute. I'm sure that you've seen this report. Anyone who starts to dig into effects of, of artificial turf runs across this. And I'll just say that I, you know, I am on this toxic use reduction scientific advisory board. And so we do interact with the scientists that put together this report. And, you know, I have a lot of respect for them. They, they do really, really good work. And so they, you know, they have these different categories, they have the tire chrome, they have these other types of rubbers here. And I would say that you could group all of these different types together. And these are the types of infills that you definitely want to avoid. They're going to have similar impacts in the environment. It leaves the acrylic coated sand and these mineral or, or plant based options, which, you know, you can see expected to be absent, expected to be absent. There's really not very much research that's been done. This report was from 2019 and I haven't been able to find anything that's new on, on this with, you know, admittedly the limited amount of time that I had to, to do research on this. So Helen, just do you know, like when it means, because I think, you know, this is 2019 and the industry has certainly developed more organic infill materials, like the shredded wood, which is kind of there now in the COVID. Is that, that's not like, what is mineral or plant based? What is that? Is that, you know, what that is? So I think that that was in that category. I was just curious. I mean, but you can see that in, in this table, there's, it's, there's so much that's grouped together. It's, it's very hard to say anything in particular about one particular product. I would just want to know if you, you do go, like you're looking at some of these wood based products to find out if they're using any types of chemicals to preserve the wood. You know, like arsenic based compounds were really popular in playgrounds, like up until not too long ago. So, you know, I would be, you know, like what, what keeps it from just turning into the mulch that I put on my garden, you know, that just, that disintegrates within a season that they must be doing something, but I don't know what it is. Thank you. And then I think the last question from the committee was about the climate change impacts of this. And so I was able to find there was a study that was done that did a life cycle assessment on a specific artificial tar field, but it was supposed to be kind of representative in Toronto, Canada. And it was estimated to be 55.6 tons of CO2 equivalents. If you're like me, and you don't really know what that means, it is equivalent to the emissions from 26 cars over a year. So I drew these 26 little cars here to kind of show the impact. I think that another thing that that should really be considered is that the plastics industry industry sustains the fossil fuel sector and it's becoming a more and more important lifeline for the fossil fuel industry as we're decreasing, you know, we're trying to move away from fossil fuel based fuels. So right now it's about 8% of the fossil fuel industry use goes into plastics and that has been increasing steadily over the years. And so by, you know, supporting the use of plastics, you're supporting the use of fossil fuels and it will be very difficult to completely phase out fossil fuels until we find a way to reduce our dependence on plastics. And that's, that is all that I have. So I'll stop sharing my screen so I can see everyone. And do we have any overall questions for Dr. Pointon? I think it was very informative and sometimes it's helpful not only to get your perspective but your perspective about other scientific studies perspectives. I have one clarifying question about the study you just read or discussed. So when they looked at that Toronto field, they were looking at the carbon impact of an artificial turf field, but did they compare that to the carbon impact, which I'm assuming would be much less, but the carbon impact of maintaining a natural turf field? They did do that comparison. I mean, it was, it was much, much less the natural field. I didn't, it wasn't part of the question. So I didn't stick it on the slide. But yeah, I mean, there's carbon impacts on everything, right? I mean, there's a carbon impact on this, for this Zoom call we're doing as minimal as it is, I'm sure there's still a carbon impact. So I mean, it's just, yeah, but yeah. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Point? I have others, but I want to defer to the group. This is your opportunity. I guess I'll ask. Do you have any research, or have you seen any research on the type of contaminants? I mean, this was based on looking at artificial turf, but dirt can have contaminants as well. What is, I mean, have we looked at what baseline contamination exists in, you know, some of our grass environments and turf fields? Sure. Like, I mean, lead is, is one of those ubiquitous contaminants. And that was because of the use of leaded gasoline. So some of these contaminants do exist in the, I'm not going to say naturally in the environment because they're unnatural to the environment, but they exist in the environment. And so I'm trying to wrestle with some of the existing contaminants that we have out there. And, you know, we hear about contaminants coming through weather, contaminated rains and snow that can leach into fields and streams. And how much of that exists out there? So in, in a place like Arlington, I would think that the lead levels in your soil are pretty low. The areas where we find really high levels of lead are mostly in inner city areas or directly around highways. How about former landfills? Particularly the landfills in Arlington tend to have been farm waste landfills. Is that, is that typically a source of environmental contaminants? Farm waste, what? So like, I know the park across the street from my house was a partly a farm and then whatever waste they had from like, I don't know, farm equipment. That's what that dump was. It was a former landfill. And it's capped, but it was, you know, I don't think it was just a regular garbage dump, but it was, it was concentrated around farm waste. And I think my understanding is that's true in Arlington. Although someone here may know better, is there particular contaminants that are found there? I mean, actually the chat is saying it was a municipal landfill. Yes. I mean, several of our, what are now playing fields were built over former municipal landfills where trash was dumped. That's true about poets. It's true about buzzle. It's true about McLennan. But I don't know, I don't know that existing, I don't know that testing results exist in those areas. And I guess I was trying to figure out if there's, you know, a general consensus of the types of contaminants that you might see from that type of former use of areas that are now natural grass. Right. So if they're, if they're capped, then on the surface, that's probably not a huge issue. They could be leaching contaminants to pen into the groundwater. I would think that that's where you would, you know, typically they'll drill a well, they'll set up a well and try to measure the levels that are ending up in the groundwater from those sources. And I know that landfills have definitely come up in the conversations around where PFOS is getting into drinking water, you know, particularly areas that use groundwater as their source of drinking water. Helen, you mentioned about something about being near a highway. So if we had a field that was adjacent to a major highway, which we do, that is also a landfill, and it's probably, you know, I don't know, what is it, everyone, probably like a 200 yards or so from the highway. If that, is that a potential to get, like, what's, what's, what could happen there? Is that just the tire dust that could get on, is that would be the grass exposure that would worry about? So I was talking about highways, mostly in relation to lead. And it would have been highways that were present, you know, 30 years ago, when, before the, the band went into effect. Okay. Now, Dr. Point, and I have a question just about PFAS. I mean, a few years ago, when PFAS kind of started to emerge into the public consciousness, more than just the scientific community, I was reading a lot about it on a regular basis. And I have to admit, I haven't read as much about it in recent years. So I'm sure there's been a lot more study and a lot more results. But one of the things that struck me a few years back about PFAS, and I'm going to speak just to, you know, human effects, not aquatic or wildlife, which is a separate matter. But, you know, obviously, you know, the great concern is about drinking water, but there was sort of a, there seemed to be a consensus that, you know, PFAS is definitely getting into humans and that, you know, testing a human show that sometimes there was a lot of PFAS in our bodies at any given time. And how it got there wasn't always clear. Some of it could have been from drinking water. Some of it could have been from other means of getting in there. There also seemed to sort of be a consensus that over time PFAS leaves your body, though, how fast and how, in what form it was never, that I guess wasn't as developed a few years back. But the real thing that seemed always a little speculative to me concerning, but speculative was the effect of PFAS on humans, the health effects.  It was always a little more at the time sort of indicators, but nothing direct saying, you know, PFAS will lead to this, this, and this. I don't know if that's changed and I don't know if you may think I'm perfectly open to this, that maybe I've misinterpreted what I read even a number of years ago, but what is the sort of consensus these days in the scientific community about PFAS and its effect on humans? Sort of how it gets into our bodies, how it gets out of our bodies and then its effect on us while it's in our bodies. So I would say that this scientific consensus has moved more towards that they're very bad chemicals for humans. You know, this is, it's falling in the human health area where I didn't really prep for for tonight. So I'm really raising this off of, you know, lectures that I give in my classes from a long time ago.  One thing that came out during COVID was that they suppress the immune system, they make it more difficult for vaccines to work even at low levels. And, you know, there have been some environmental justice communities that have been impacted by really high levels of PFAS and they definitely have increased incidences of really kind of terrible outcomes, you know, reproductive related outcomes as well as cancers. So, especially the ones that have been the most studied, so the PFOA and PFOS, those are, you know, they're banned for, for a good reason. And they're being regulated by the EPA and other organizations for, for really good reasons. That's helpful. Thank you. I know, I know you had to go a lot of script for that, but I appreciate it because it's still, still very, I mean, getting access to a scientist is helpful for us, you know, you know, you're, you're going to know more about this even unprepared than we would prepare. I appreciate it. I have a question. Do they accumulate, like up through the food chain? Is that part of the problem? So, you know, for fishing, are the fish going to have much higher levels than the invertebrates or whatever initially gets, gets the compound? I'm trying to, to think if I've seen what literature I've seen on that and I don't want to, I don't want to say anything that's not true. I just had a question related to, I know that, you know, the scientific community has done a lot of studying and coming up with, you know, the impacts and effects of, you know, these different chemicals and what they do. Are you aware of any type of partnerships where the scientific community partners with industry to mitigate and figure out ways to alleviate these effects and, and I guess it just seems that they're both working on similar problems but almost in parallel tracks and the research doesn't suggest to me that there's any collaboration. Are you seeing anything different that, you know, maybe you could make us aware of?  And there's often, there's a lot of, a lot of this work is also done by consulting companies. And so like you'll see on a paper, like you might see it on a paper, some, some scientists that are from a consulting company, some scientists that are from an industry and some scientists that are from academia. And that's, that's not uncommon.  But they are, but there is, there is, there are some good things happening between the scientific and the business community is what your answer would suggest to me. I don't know. Okay. So in, you know, especially in the, within the field of toxicology, it's really hard to find you know, players from industry that, that you can look at and we're like, oh yeah, they were doing the right thing. It's, you know, starting with lead, asbestos, PFAS, the industry tried to hide the effects, they knew these things were harmful, and they, they tried to bury the studies and hide the effects. Okay. And most of, you know, you're talking about like Dupont, 3M, Procter and Gamble, they all have toxicologists on their staff. And, you know, some of them are good people, whether they always get to publish the results and and, you know, convey what they found is, is another question. Thank you. The last round for Dr. Pointon, who's been very generous with your time. Anyone? Well, I would say. There are like a million questions in the chat. Well, but I think we've been sort of keying into them a little bit and some of them have been okay. Okay. I'll admit a lot of more, more comments or observations than questions. But if there's anything you see in the chat you want to weigh in on, but I mean, I've note that I think more of them were in the form of comments than questions. Or if any one of the committee wants to latch on to one of them and, and voice them. But I just was curious about your point.  Oh, sure. Like, you know, sort of the file. So we can, I know there were some questions about looking at them. That'd be great. And then I can have them posted to the Artificial TARF study committee website. It would be great. Yeah. I'll add a slide at the end with some of the references that, and if there's any links available. So, and I'll share it as a PDF if that's okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Well, if there's nothing else, we'll say thank you, Dr. Pointon. We really appreciate your time and your knowledge. And if we have a follow-up question, would you be available over email for us to reach out and ask a question or two if we, something comes up over the next few weeks? Sure. I'll do the best I can. It's all any of us can do. So I think your best is better than most of ours. So thank you. Excellent. Well, thank you, Dr. Pointon. We appreciate it. You can stay on or check out if you want. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Thanks so much. Good night. So the rest of us have a couple of just, and I know it's 612. So, you know, I don't think the next few things will take more than 10 minutes. But if you'd all just kind of hang in there. I want to say, you know, very informative speakers tonight. Very happy about it. I have a speaker coming for the next meeting. So the next meeting, the plan, I guess we're into agenda item four now, Natasha reports deliverables project timeline. The plan, as you saw, the original plan has already made way for a revised plan. It may not be our last revision, but for now, I think the dates through March 1st are pretty set in stone, which is the first deliverable was well, actually, I'm going to revise revise it again. I think we said we do this Friday, but due to open meeting considerations, and Natasha having to post things because the lawn weekend and Monday not being a business day, she has to post everything on Thursday. So if everything could be in Natasha's hands by what time Thursday morning? Yeah, Thursday morning would be great. But no later than 12 would be really appreciative just so that I have to get everything posted by five. And it's not really all on me that I can do that. So and that would be the same for anyone that in the public that would like to submit any kind of comments or whatnot, just to please get those to me by Thursday at noon at the latest. And if you could get it sooner, that would be really appreciative. So what will happen next is a very quick turnaround. You know, within two weeks of that deadline, there will be another deadline for the narrative sections. So essentially, spanning the bullets into something that could be in theory, dragged and dropped into into a larger report. So to the extent if you haven't started that, as soon as your bullet points are done, I would recommend quickly turning to that because that will obviously the bullet points will be a guide, but when you have to sort of flesh these things out, it does take a lot longer. The plan is so, you know, first deliverable, the bullet points would be this Thursday morning, due to Natasha who will share them with the agenda for next Tuesday's meeting. And then the plan next Tuesday is to spend the first hour of our meeting with another guest speaker who may take less than that, but may take more. I have found someone who is an expert in both turf, natural grass and artificial turf, sort of someone from the industry, so to speak, but has worked with both, and I can tell you more about him and give you more of his bio for the meeting, but it's someone I think is going to be very, very knowledgeable on this topic from sort of more of a practitioner's perspective, not a scientific perspective, but someone who works with the products, with natural turf and artificial turf all the time and has vast experience in this area. So my goal would be to have him speak to us for up to the first hour, and then our conversation would shift over to an initial discussion among us of the group bullet points. And so I would hope that people could be a little more generous with their time next Tuesday. I know it's some of you can't make it. I realize it was a meeting we didn't initially want to have during school vacation week, but we kind of have to have it based on the timeline. So I sort of expect that meeting to be a two hour meeting potentially, maybe longer, but maybe we just try to have a hard stop at seven or thereabouts. The following week, I'm losing try, I should have a counter in front of me, Natasha. The 27th. The meeting on the Tuesday, the 27th, we would continue our discussion about the bullet points because I think it's going to, this is really the first time each of the working groups has shown their hands, so to speak, has given us the deliverable. So it will be completely new to the members of the committee who are parts of those working groups. And there's probably going to be a lot to suss out and to discuss. So I didn't want to say, well, we get one shot at one meeting. And if you missed the meeting, you missed the discussion. I really wanted it to be over two meetings. So that's what the principal focus of the following meeting would be. And of course, if we do get it yet another guest speaker, we'll try to fit them in. But, you know, I think right now we're at a point where we just timing wise, we're lucky to have the speakers we've had and we may not have time for more, especially as we keep pushing along with the deliverables. Then the second, I think it's Friday, March 1st. The second major deliverable is due to the sort of narrative sections. After that, I have to say it's not clear to me how much the calendar we, the time that we set out is we're going to stick to it. You know, at that point, it gets a little dicey. It's sort of how far and how fast we can go while still I feel like giving everything it's due. So once we get to March 1st, we may have to reevaluate kind of the timing of things. But if you look at the timeline or the draft, revised draft time, and you get a sense of how we have a lot to do in March. And so I guess my early ask to everyone is probably starting with our next meeting and going forward. Don't assume these are one hour, one hour, 10 meetings. I don't want them to become all-night affairs, but we may need two or three hours at each of these meetings. Or the alternative is to add even more meetings in order to give everything it's due and to have a kind of full discussion I think we need to have in order to reach a consensus by the deadline, which is very fast approaching. Jim, I can respect that, except that I will point out every other Tuesday will be an issue for Standing Park and Recreation. So I certainly want to participate as fully, and I know Joe does as well, but our... When do those meetings begin, Leslie? Six or seven? Seven. Okay. Well, maybe that encourages us every other Tuesday. Get as much done by seven as we can. I mean, unfortunately it means for you and Joe, you have very long nights. Jen, our meetings are in person, so I need to leave and travel. One question. I'm just throwing this out there. Would we be able to... Are folks available to start the meeting at 4.30? Would that help anyone or no? Joe Barr, I'm seeing no. It'd be tough for me. Okay. I just wanted to... But I just want to point that out. Yeah, as a Tuesday issue, not every Tuesday, every other Tuesday. Well, and you'll see that after March 1st, tentatively we have dates, days other than Tuesdays being added just, you know, and we'll quickly get a sense of whether, you know, we're going to need more time or I guess it's possible we may need less time. But I just want to set expectations that, you know, the idea of the 60, the 70-minute meeting may start to vanish, you know, and then we may be here more like 90 to 120 minutes for future meetings or potentially more. Although if we're going more than 120 minutes, we probably just need to be adding more nights rather than going forever, you know, at five-hour meetings. The other thing I think we can do to speed things along at the end game, which we can do now is, and I'm going to recommend everyone do this. In fact, I'm not going to recommend, I'm going to say everyone should do this, is I'm sure each of the working groups has been collecting all the various sources they've looked to while they've been working on the bullet points and ultimately on their sections. I think you should be sending your list of sources, whether if you've cited it or not cited or just simply read it, because I think if you read it, you've used it. We would like to have you start sending those to Natasha so she can start building an appendix of all of the sources we relied on throughout this process because one thing we don't want is 48 hours before this thing is, do we're scurrying around on something that we could have easily done. And you can keep supplementing it, you read a new source, you send it to her, we can supplement, but I'm sure right now every group has had a baseline group of several dozen sources they've looked to. Send those to Natasha, we can start building that appendix and sort of doing starting on some of the administrative work now rather than scurrying around to do that in the end game. And if I can just ask, I get a lot of emails. So I'm hoping that maybe you can just put like AT for artificial turf and then reference or resource so that reference would be better. That way if I have to scan through in a week, I can get those. I'm going to start putting them into a separate mailbox, but that would just be helpful. So AT for athletic artificial turf. And it doesn't have to be just related to artificial turf. That's just how I'm delineating. So AT references would be great as the subject line. It probably also would be helpful knowing that maybe each group could send an email as a group. So someone could speak for the group and collect the group rather than getting, you know, nine, eight to eight emails to Natasha. It'd be nice if she could get nice two three emails, but you know, whatever you can do, knowing it will be supplement. I mean, this is, you know, just trying to lay the groundwork for less craziness at the end of the process. Is the idea going to be to use numbered footnotes or just have the references at the end? Because I feel like we're sending them sporadically, but we haven't put those footnotes in yet that could get, and we've got three, three different reports that could get very unwieldy. So that's a great question. So, you know, we should have a common format, whether it's, you know, footnotes or endnotes. I mean, I, but I think we're, I'd say I may regret this. Each group should do what they're comfortable with for this, for the next two phases. And then it's on Natasha and me to make it look like a report with a common format. But do whatever you're comfortable with in the drafting. I don't want anyone to get hung up on, you know, the mechanics when, when Natasha and I will take that duty and make it all kind of melt. But for the appendix part, you know, we just need to know anything you looked at, because we're going to build that and, and it's going to be a reference, you know, there'll be, there may be several appendices to this report, but one of them should just be, this is all the sources consulted. First person, you know, it can be, and it should be first person conversations you've had too.  So yes, please, please keep that in mind. And as soon as you start that, the better. Anything else, Natasha, on sort of administrative or timeline? I don't think so other than, you know, I think we're just going to have to be flexible as we get closer to March to figure out what we may or may not need. And, you know, we'll just, we'll just go from there if we have to move around meetings. And if that's the case, if we're going to end up with a couple of meetings in a week, then agendas will likely be posted both at the same time, just to make sure we're in compliance with open meeting law. And so it may just be a little bit challenging at that point if I'm getting, you know, comments from public or there's information that you'd like to share. So I will do the best that I can in getting those into the packets. And I just up front appreciate everyone for your patience and understanding and cooperation. Yeah. And I just say that, you know, unfortunately, there was a price to be paid from giving us a little more flexibility in February. The price that's to be paid is that we'll have tighter timelines and less flexibility in March. So I would finish by just cautioning every member of the committee to keep the first three weeks of March very flexible in their schedule, to the extent they can. I know there are commitments, work commitments, family commitments. I get all that, but we really have a sprint. We go from a marathon to a sprint the first three. I mean, right now, tentatively, we have to get this in by March 22nd. I don't want to sacrifice quality for that deadline. I think it can be done that we could have a good report and something that's finished and on time. But I would just say the first three weeks of March, keep them as flexible as you can. Any new business? I just had a question for Leslie and Joe, because one of the reasons we asked the high school athletic trainer about safety, heat safety training was that may be one of our mitigations. And we were wondering if all of the clubs that use your fields, do they have a heat safety protocol that you know of? Or is that maybe by the different organizations they belong to? Or does recreation have one their own? We don't have them, but that's a great question. Let me reach out to the user groups and find out if their governing bodies have one. Yeah, they may be more informal, but we can certainly find out the formality. I mean, I think the soccer club might be... Yeah, it looks like they do. I think we're seeing in the chat. That would be my expectation. Soccer is pretty good about things like that, and it may be just a matter of bringing it forward to a broader audience and making sure it's published. I'll reach out and get copies of everything. Any other new business? Well, we're in for a wild ride the next few weeks, but I wouldn't want to do it with anyone other than this group. So I think this group really knows how to bear down and do some great work and work together. So we've got a lot on our plate, but I think it's doable and we're going to do it. So with that, is there a motion? Motion to adjourn? I'll second it. Okay, and all the roll, I guess. All right. So Mike is absent. Joe Barr? Yep. Leslie? Yes. Jill? Yes. Marvin? Yes. Natasha is a yes. Jim? Yes. Yes. Okay, we are officially adjourned.