Central Tech debates rubber versus cork
TDSB overrules residents on choice of materials for long-delayed artificial field
Central Technical School’s new artificial field has been at the heart of a turf war between Annex residents, a contractor and the country’s largest school board.
The Toronto District School Board insisted this month on using crumb rubber as the material for the new field, as the original agreement with the contractor called for. A few of the school’s neighbours had offered to pitch in $150,000 for a natural cork field instead because they worried about possible health risks associated with exposure to chemicals in the rubber.
The school board — citing a study by Toronto Public Health — said these concerns are unsubstantiated. “The use of third generation artificial turf is not expected to result in exposure to contaminants at levels that pose a significant risk to human health,” a TPH study said.
The board opted against the cork out of concern that it would delay the project beyond the start of the next school year.
Even if experts say crumb rubber is safe, a few of Central Tech’s neighbours argue it’s better to be extra cautious.
“To me, if we have any opportunity to make it less bad — and there’s so much compelling evidence that tire crumb is bad for us — why wouldn’t we err on the safe side, when kids are playing on it?” said Rochelle Rubinstein, an artist who lives near the school and is one of the potential donors.
Matthew Raizenne of Razor Management, the company leading the restoration of Central Tech’s field, says the cork field could have been installed on time.
“There would not have been any delay and all funds were coming from one to two donors and were100 per cent raised and secured in full,” he wrote in an email to the Star.
The board “didn’t bother to ask anyone” if it was possible to build a cork field and stay on schedule, he added.
The deal at Central Tech is a licence agreement between the Toronto District School Board and Razor Management. Razor would build and manage the school’s field and dome at Bathurst and Harbord Sts.
The original 1960s-era playing field has been closed for more than two years for reconstruction. Disagreements about the size of a seasonal dome to be built over the field and tax exemptions for the private contractor have plagued the project.
The debate about rubber versus natural fields is nothing new.
In the United States, the tiny granules of rubber that get stuck in athletes’ shoes have sparked a national conversation about their potential health risks. A few American jurisdictions, including Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., have banned this type of synthetic turf.
The county worried about toxic and carcinogenic elements in the rubber infill and was concerned that it may increase the likelihood of concussions, said Roger Berliner, a Montgomery County council member and chair of its environment committee.
Although the county found evidence of the potential dangers was “inconclusive,” it banned the construction of any new crumb rubber fields in the county of one million people, he said.
“It was a very easy step for us to take,” he added, even if cork infill is more expensive.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says “limited studies” haven’t shown any dangers associated with crumb rubber fields, “but the existing studies do not comprehensively evaluate the concerns about health risks from exposure.”
After a cursory review of research on crumb rubber fields, Denis Grant, a professor in the University of Toronto’s toxicology and pharmacology department, says there are some toxic and carcinogenic compounds in the rubber turf, but they pose little risk. “For instance, a recent risk analysis from Italy concludes that the
“To me, if we have any opportunity to make it less bad ... why wouldn’t we err on the safe side, when kids are playing on it?”
ROCHELLE RUBINSTEIN
cancer risk from the field material itself is about 10 times lower than the cancer risk associated with the field simply being close to vehicular traffic,” he wrote in an email to the Star.
Whether the crumb rubber is dangerous or not, Neil Stephenson, the head of a civic group called the Friends and Neighbours of Central Tech, says he doesn’t understand why the school board passed up a chance at a “free upgrade” to the field.
“It seems there may have been an opportunity here that was missed,” he said.