QUESTION FAKE GRASS in LGUSD.

The above image is from  a non-local mom's Twitter post . However, a Los Gatos mom we spoke to  shared that her son experienced burns  on t he Los Gatos High School synthetic turf field  . A re you familiar with heat issues that come with artificial turf?  Artificial turf, even with plant-based infill, gets HOT.  In the 2020-2021 schoolyear, Los Gatos had 77 days above 80 degrees.   Based on data we collected from a local park, on a sunny, 80-degree Fahrenheit day, artificial turf with cork infill  was 110 degrees ! And it could actually get hotter than that. Check out these datapoints captured by others .   How would you like your 6-year-old playing soccer on a field that's 125 degrees  when the air temperature was only 84 degrees? That was the experience of the 6-year-olds in Rockwood School District. And how about when it's not such a mild day? On a 97-degree Fahrenheit day, an artificial turf field with plant-based infill c...

Image from   kidspriorityone.org The  Children’s Environmental Health Center of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai   cautions in its artificial turf consumer guide : "Beware of greenwashing: the use of terms like “organic”, “green”, and “Eco” do not guarantee safety. In fact, those terms are not regulated for turf products, so their meaning in this context is at best ambiguous."

Image from  forceofnatureclean.com In this educational seminar "Testing for Chemicals of Concern in Synthetic Turf" , David Teter ( the consultant LGUSD's landscape designer brought to the 11/8/21 LGUSD-hosted Town Hall to  assert the safety  of artificial turf ) concludes: "Organic infill products made from coconut fiber/peat and rice husks are inconsistent with regards to the leaching of heavy metals and SVOCs. Some of these organic infills leached more heavy metals (arsenic, cobalt, hexavalent chromium, lead, and nickel) and SVOCs than crumb rubber." LGUSD has eschewed crumb rubber in its proposed artificial turf system because of the widely-recognized concerns with it.  So how can LGUSD conclude plant-based infills are safe?