Killeen’s Leo Buckley Stadium and Copperas Cove’s Bulldawg Stadium feature AstroPlay, the same synthetic turf used at Odessa’s Ratliff Stadium and the Birdville school district’s Fine Arts/Athletics Complex in the Fort Worth suburb of North Richland Hills.
Temple’s Wildcat Stadium (RealGrass Pro) and Belton’s Tiger Field (ProPlay) have artificial turf other than AstroPlay, the major “infill” product manufactured by Southwest Recreational Industries Inc., a Leander company that went out of business in 2004. The company patented the “root zone” and marketed it as a feature for stabilizing the rubber granules.
Killeen school district athletic director Tom Rogers and Copperas Cove athletic director/head football coach Jack Welch both said Wednesday that they had not been aware of the testing results involving the lead levels in the AstroPlay surfaces of the Odessa and Birdville stadiums.
Both men expressed concern about the AstroPlay testing results reported by the AP.
“I think anytime there’s something harmful or unsafe for your children, your students, you need to take a serious look into it,” Welch said. “I’ve never heard of that testing, but I certainly think we need to take a look at it.”
Said Rogers: “Sure, it does (raise concerns). We’re going to need to verify that information, and if it’s true then we need to start testing immediately.”
Testing commissioned by the Ector County school district on the turf at Ratliff Stadium found lead at roughly 14 times the EPA standard. Similar testing by the Birdville school district discovered a lead level nearly 10 times the EPA standard at its stadium.
The results are the first public indication that Texas’ high school stadiums have become part of the national controversy about whether artificial turf contains unsafe levels of lead.
Welch said Cove installed its AstroPlay field in 2001 and has discussed replacing it in the near future. Rogers said Killeen installed its playing surface in 2002 and that it came with a 15-year guarantee.
Max Cleaver, the Temple school district’s executive director of operations, said Wildcat Stadium’s RealGrass Pro turf - installed before the 2006 season - was manufactured by Sportfield LLC of Austin. It is the same surface being installed in the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium.
Cleaver said he was “very pleased” that Temple’s turf is not the AstroPlay surface that has tested high for lead and added Temple will be ready to conduct testing to make sure that its field is safe for play.
Tiger Field’s ProPlay surface, installed in 2005, was manufactured by Longview-based ARMS Building & Maintenance.
Ratliff Stadium, which has a capacity of 19,500, has become part of Texas football lore as the home of the Permian Panthers, winners of six state championships and the team profiled in “Friday Night Lights.” The Birdville stadium is also well known, with a seating capacity of 12,000.
The high lead levels were found in a secondary layer of nylon fiber at the base of the fields called the “root zone.”
Neither test found significant lead levels in the uppermost fibers, the portion of the field that athletes are in contact with most often. However, testing at the Birdville stadium also found about twice the EPA limit for lead in drinking water in the runoff from the field, an indication that the lead is being released into the environment.
“Our opinion is that AstroPlay turf could pose a human health risk,” wrote Michael T. Abel, project manager at the Lubbock lab that conducted the test.
Quentin Burnett, an associate superintendent in the Birdville school district, said he and other officials are now attempting to learn whether the turf, installed five years ago, can still be safely used.
“We don’t have the $300,000 or $400,000 it would take to replace it any more than anybody else does,” he said. “But we’re not going to have something that’s unsafe for our students.”
David Finley, the Ector County district’s director of facilities and maintenance, said the district sees no immediate cause for concern. For the time being, he said, it will continue monitoring the field, also five years old.
Elsewhere in the country, including California and New Jersey, officials have closed facilities that showed lead levels far lower than those at the two Texas stadiums.
The lead in artificial turf comes from lead chromate, which until recently was used in the pigment that colors the nylon or polyethylene fibers. Artificial turf manufacturers say the danger is overblown because the lead is largely contained in the fibers. But critics contend that the fields present a risk as they degrade with use and sunlight.
More than 200 of Texas’ 1,154 high school stadiums have artificial turf, according to Bob McSpadden, who has a Web site devoted to the state’s stadiums.
