By managingeditor@localnewsllc.com | on November 17, 2021

After encountering some resistance to their plan to replace high school football fields with synthetic turf, county officials are arguing that turf fields, like those at River City Sportsplex, above, are actually more cost efficient than grass due to the increased “use hours” turf fields provide. JAMES HASKINS

They hit the ground running in September, but plans to install synthetic turf fields at all 10 county high schools have since run into some resistance, mainly from citizens who question the expense – each field would cost $2 million – and raise safety concerns.

The turf fields are needed, county and school officials say, because demand for field time has increased over the years as high schools have added new sports, such as lacrosse and field hockey, and the county now faces a shortage of “rectangular” fields. With field conditions deteriorating at several schools, shifting to synthetic turf would increase the usability of high school fields and assist the county in attracting larger regional youth sports tournaments, officials say. But there’s a cost: Adding synthetic turf to all 10 county high schools would cost roughly $20 million.

First announced during a joint work session with the School Board and Board of Supervisors on Sept. 8, the current plan is to install synthetic turf at two high schools – Bird and Monacan – using year-end surplus funds. The remaining eight fields would be added later.

But the initiative has yet to get a public hearing, which has unnerved some citizens.

“Explain the reason for prioritizing this over other school needs. Many are wondering about plans and funding for ‘catching up’ as COVID subsides, especially for students with special needs,” said Chester resident Mike Uzel during last week’s School Board meeting. “Schools are not in the best place right now. The timing of this $20 million proposal is, at best, not the best.”

During a county-schools liaison meeting on Nov. 5, Stuart Connock, chief of park planning, construction and design for Chesterfield’s Parks and Recreation Department, offered a detailed cost-benefit analysis for replacing natural grass fields with artificial turf.

While the upfront costs are higher, Connock said over a 25-year period, synthetic turf actually costs less than installing new, premium grass fields, which unlike the existing high school fields include advanced vertical and horizontal drainage systems, and sports-specific Bermuda grasses. To reach that conclusion, however, one has to take into account the additional “use hours” synthetic turf fields provide compared to grass.

In other words, Connock said their analysis found that turf fields essentially double the number of usable hours compared to grass fields in a given year for a variety of sports – including football, lacrosse, field hockey and soccer – and broader community use.

“When you take a look at a field, really not just at schools but parks as well, you [get] about 3,000 hours of use a year, and that’s in the afternoons and evenings, weekends, and then more full operation at school sites throughout the summer,” Connock told the liaison committee, which includes two members apiece from the Board of Supervisors and School Board. “When you look at turf, and here we’re talking about synthetic turf, really the only thing that keeps you off that field is freezing conditions … so you’re almost getting 100% utilization.”

One of the biggest factors hindering use of existing grass fields – rain – causes an inordinate amount of event cancellations and rescheduling, Connock said. Synthetic turf, with its advanced drainage systems, is rarely out of commission after a downpour.

“When you look at natural grass, by the time you run the numbers, you are only getting about 50% of that 3,000 hours,” Connock added. “Grass stops growing, you can’t use it in the wintertime and have a suitable safe surface to play on. You have rain events that keep you off of that. And then the only time you can renovate the grass, it’s a warm-season grass, is during the summer. So you have to close down the use of that field to restore the grass to allow it to perform the rest [of the year].”

The math, according to Connock, works something like this: A rectangular synthetic turf field costs roughly $2 million to install initially, and another $1 million to replace the turf surface twice (it typically lasts 8-10 years) and the underlying padding once over a 25-year period. A premium, natural grass field costs $1 million to install and another $800,000 in maintenance over the same 25 years.

Factoring in the increase in usable hours, Connock said, building a single synthetic turf field is essentially worth two grass fields. The parks department’s analysis, he said, found that over the 25-year period, turf winds up costing 17% less than installing new premium grass fields.

At the liaison meeting, supervisor Leslie Haley, who represents the Midlothian District, argued that adding synthetic turf to high school fields is a “good use” of county resources.

“Allowing families to use these facilities as much as they can is critically important,” she said. “Parks and rec has never been as important as it is right now is what we are hearing from our citizens about every availability of resources that meets every age, from our really young to our senior citizens. And this is just another piece that supports that initiative, I think.”

School Board member Ann Coker, who represents the Bermuda District, asked Connock about sports injuries, comparing synthetic turf and grass. There’s been considerable research on the topic, including a 2019 study by University Hospitals Sports Medicine that found high school athletes were 58% more likely to sustain injuries on artificial turf after analyzing data from 26 high school athletic trainers in 2017-2018.

But there’s also research cited by the Synthetic Turf Council, the industry’s primary trade group, that suggests the injury risks of playing on artificial turf is negligible.

“There’s been quite a body of research on that,” Connock said at the liaison meeting. “I have some questions on a number of the studies as to the controls that they used on them. When they say, ‘Hey, there were more injuries on turf fields than there were on grass fields,’ were those turf fields … properly maintained?”

Connock did say synthetic turf fields can produce higher levels of heat during the summer months, which is one of the “problem points,” but that this can be managed with monitoring controls. Otherwise, Connock said his own research into the topic of sports injuries was “nonconclusive.”

The Board of Supervisors is expected to consider funding for the first two fields at a work session this week. A public hearing on using fiscal year 2021 year-end surplus funds – including the $4 million for the first two fields at Bird and Monacan – will be held at the board’s December meeting. ¦

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