Fountain Hills may join districts with artificial-turf football fields

With its bond newly approved, the Fountain Hills Unified School District can now decide whether to install an artificial-turf football field at Fountain Hills High School.

A turf field is on a list of potential projects the $8 million bond could pay for. A bond oversight committee will begin prioritizing the work.

While a new field, whether artificial or grass, likely won’t be completed before the more urgently needed air-conditioning and security upgrades, Fountain Hills could join other districts that have seen savings in their operating budgets from turf fields.

This past year, the Paradise Valley Unified School District installed artificial-turf football fields at Horizon, North Canyon, Pinnacle and Shadow Mountain high schools. The district’s fifth high school, Paradise Valley, has had a turf field for several years.

The district spent about $5.8 million from a bond approved by voters in 2011.

Corey Newland, the Paradise Valley district athletic director, said the lighting and sound systems were also upgraded. In addition, extra rubber infill was added to the field at Paradise Valley High School to extend the life of its turf, and the district also bought a Zamboni-like machine that vacuums the surfaces.

District officials predict they will save $131,000 a year by not having to water, fertilize, mow and maintain five grass football fields. That savings comes out of the district’s operating budget, which pays for teachers and classroom programs.

“At three of the schools, we would have had to do serious repair of the irrigation that would have cost up to $300,000 per site to get those up to speed,” Newland said. “They were archaic and had never been updated since the schools were built.”

The turf fields will save about 16 million gallons of water per year, the district predicts. Access was another issue. “You can use these 365 days a year,” Newland said, unlike grass fields, which deteriorate and need time to recover from frequent use. Paradise Valley is hoping to turn that extra time into money by renting the fields more frequently.

A few other northeast Valley high schools use synthetic fields, including Scottsdale Christian Academy. Notre Dame Prep in Scottsdale is planning to break ground in January on its new artificialturf field, which is part of a $10 million capital campaign that will include classrooms and a performing arts center.

The Scottsdale Unified School District has two high schools with artificial fields — Chaparral and Arcadia. Chaparral’s field was funded by donations. At Arcadia, donations paid for part of the project. The rest is being paid in yearly installments with money the district saves by not having to water or maintain a grass field.

Scottsdale had predicted it would save about 900,000 gallons of water a year total from Arcadia and Chaparral but has actually saved 2.5 million gallons. That translated into a savings of about $29,000 from the operating budget, according to Greg Skelton, grounds development lead for the district.

“Actually, it’s been a lot better than we expected it in the beginning,” he said of the maintenance. “We spend about an hour and half every three weeks grooming the fields. We’re no longer painting lines because that’s woven into the fabric.”

One drawback is that turf can get very hot in the sun. Most fields are equipped with sprinklers to cool them down, but that makes it humid. Skelton said that Arcadia and Chaparral play hot-weather games at night, when the surface has cooled, and practice during the day on grass fields.

Artificial fields are made of fibers over a filling of groundup rubber and sand.

A few years ago, health questions were raised when the New Jersey Department of Health found high levels of lead in some synthetic fields. A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month found that those fields were old and the fibers were shredded and that newer fields made of polyethylene fibers, like those in Paradise Valley, had very low lead content. The newer field mesh prevents the filling from flying out, which was an issue with the older fields.