The Philadelphia Inquirer asked the three turf companies the city might hire for samples of their product so the newspaper could test it. None would reply.
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By David Gambacorta and Barbara Laker, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 25, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
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 artificial turf playing fields.
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.”
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The Inquirer contacted the three companies that the city is considering — FieldTurf, Shaw Sports Turf, and Sprinturf — and asked if each would provide samples of their 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.
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