This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
09/04/2018 12:00 AMStudents have gone back to school, but the recently built and already damaged artificial turf field at Guilford High School (GHS) will not see any playtime this fall—and maybe not even next spring. After months of investigation into the failure, town officials and consultants believe extreme temperatures and drainage issues caused the issue and the fix may require pulling the whole field up.
The $1.1 million artificial turf field opened for play more than a year ago, following an intense and protracted debate in town about health and safety issues associated with artificial turf.
The field is composed of sections of artificial turf carpet, which comes in several pieces that are stitched together. That carpet sits on top of an impact-reducing shock pad, which sits on top of a soil drainage base. The weave of the carpet is filled with Enviro-fill, a coated sand infill material.
In January, Parks & Recreation Director Rick Maynard said some of his crew members were up near the field cleaning out drains and noticed a problem: The synthetic turf carpet was coming apart at the seams and sections of padding had come apart. Maynard said his crew immediately notified him of the problem and he called the field installer and representatives from the shock pad and the carpet companies to come out, take a look at the problem, and come up with a solution.
Since both the carpet and the shock pad are under warranty, Maynard said that whatever repair costs come up will likely be covered by the company. In March, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) agreed with Maynard that the town should hire its own independent consultant, Kaestle Boos Associates, Inc., to assess the issue as well.
At a Board of Finance (BOF) meeting on Aug. 20, First Selectman Matt Hoey informed the BOF that the town’s consultant had come to a conclusion on the field.
“Kaestle Boos is very confident in the analysis and the testing that was done at the sports lab that they used, so that final report, after it was blessed by our attorney, went to the six partners and the partners include the engineering firm that designed it as well as the manufactures of the various components and then the installation team,” he said. “That group has been charged with coming up with an agreement or solution amongst themselves. If they fail to do that, we will proceed to the next step, which will be some form of litigation.”
Hoey said since it looks like numerous field components failed, the costs would be spread across various parties.
“Those contractors also don’t want to see litigation because their reputations in the industry could be besmirched to some degree...There are already a couple other cases out there that they are concerned about,” he said.
BOF Chair Mike Ayles reiterated that any solution will not cost the town a dime because the field is under warranty. He also said while it seems the cold temperatures this past January could have caused the problem, the way the shock pad was laid out and the design of the drainage base contributed to the issue. For that reason, Ayles said the town doesn’t want to go with just a quick fix.
“The question still remains...’Why can’t you just fix it temporarily?’ and there are a couple of communities that we read about and I think was Bristol, Connecticut, and Holyoke, Massachusetts, that had similar issues with the fields,” he said. “I guess they are temporarily patching, but they are really looking at us as a model because we have a consultant who has done the lab tests and what we come up with our team is going to be something that gets followed by towns and fields with the same issue.”
Hoey said because of the nature of the issues, a quick fix wouldn’t guarantee the field wouldn’t have future issues.
“The Standing Fields Committee, Kaestle Boos, as well as our attorney and I all agree that a remediation for the affected areas does not ensure that it’s not going to happen elsewhere on the carpet,” he said. “There is already potential weakening in other areas. The big problem is the pad has created gaps. The pad is supposed to be interlocking and that has separated, so without pulling back the entire carpet, we don’t know if there are other separations, so going in and doing a remediation on three or four areas is, we think, a fool’s errand.”
The contractors still need to come to an agreement, but since the town isn’t interested in a quick fix, Hoey said the solution might be the equivalent of a full reset.
“At this point the recommendation from Kaestle Boos is to take the field up in its entirety, address the drainage issue, and have a reinstallation of the pad and a new turf,” he said.