Audio: Leventhal "I'd like to feel we are providing some oversight"

Audio of July 1, 2010 Montgomery County Council Transportation, Energy & Environment Hearing on artificial turf on county fields. 

The stated focus of this hearing was to address the environmental issues related to artificial turf.  At the conclusion of this hearing the Council committee requested that a report be created to address the following questions:

• life cycle cost comparison of natural grass versus artificial turf
• water quality of runoff from natural grass versus artificial turf (use Blair HS field)
• environmental impact
• maintenance
• fertilizer

The Work Group has now issued their draft report. Unfortunately, the Work Group did not get their report to the committee by the end of 2010 as requested, and did not cover all of the issues requested by the Council committee.  The committee consisted of Councilmembers Nancy Floreen, Roger Berliner and George Leventhal.

Here is an index of the discussion found in this audio recording of the July 1, 2010 T&E Committee hearing. 

Minute:
4:20 Start of Artificial Turf discussion - Council staffer Keith Levchenko opens the discussion.
8:35 Joe Lavorgna "with MCPS" introductory remarks
14:16 Berliner on cost effectiveness test
17:20 Leventhal on disposal of artificial turf - is infill recycled car tires?
19:00 Joe Lavorgna "with MCPS" answers YES infill is recycled car tires and can all be recycled

20:25 Exclusive artificial turf vendor (FieldTurf) called to the table
22:10 Berliner statement on Council monitoring artificial turf in 6 months and Leventhal statement on not practice of Council to call vendor to give comment at a public hearing. Leventhal speaks to vendor pitching their product at public comment table. 
27:00 Field Turf Regional Manager speaks to recycling of artificial turf "every single component will be recycled"
28:00 Berliner, "put that in writing"
29:00 Leventhal, "how was this vendor selected"-  MCPS Director James Song, "product review that we went through - thorough review - intent to continue with Field Turf" - "not competitively bid" 

31:00 Leventhal - should give guidance to MCPS that artificial turf will be recycled - "this one vendor may or may not be the future vendor" [Note Field Turf has an exclusive deal with Montgomery County for 5 Years, yet this was not disclosed at this hearing]
32:00 Leventhal, "I'd like to feel that we are exercising some oversight. That we are providing some push here...We're not just a passive recipient of assurances from the school system, that we are actually guiding the process to some degree."
33:00 Floreen on no recycling will be required of Montgomery County facilities
34:30 Berliner on water quality issues associated with artificial turf
35:40 Lavorgna "with MCPS" we are not doing any  water sampling of the water runoff from the artificial turf fields"

44:00 Leventhal "are artificial turf fields safe for the environment"
47:00 Leventhal "the rain comes down"

50:00 Leventhal "90 day study" measure costs and environmental impact
57:20 "FieldTurf has many, many competitors" [Note: Yet not one has been allowed to bid on the installation of artificial turf on Montgomery County or MCPS fields.]

1:02:00  MCPS offers to work with County agencies to assess water quality issues
1:04:00 Leventhal "what is next decision point"
1:07:00 Leventhal "is it feasible to construct some sort of comparison...of water quality"
1:14:00 Leventhal "school system can provide very basic information on fertilizer, maintenance, cost..." - "not really seeing that"
1:17:00 Berliner "in addition to Mr. Leventhal's request which I believe there is agreement on..." - "collaborative process" - "...inconclusive nature as to the water quality issues" - "...you said you could monitor this piece" - "what costs associated with that" - "can we use Blair for this purpose"

1:20:00  Berliner "When you come back at the end of this calendar year [2010] with your life cycle cost comparison of grass versus turf that we also have this information..." - runoff from grass versus artificial turf - use Blair field for testing
1:27:00 Berliner on needing a report "holding up a document" - water quality is an important piece
1:43:00 Berliner "We will come back at the end of the year and you will advise us as to the results with respect to that."

Link to Audio



UPDATE:  Final Report at this link.