Artificial turf at Jerry Brewer Alumni Stadium on hold

There won’t be an artificial turf field at Jerry Brewer Alumni Stadium this fall, after all.

The lack of a decision by the Jasper School Board Monday night was precipitated by an EPA announcement to commission a study into crumb rubber artificial turf fields and the possible negative environmental effects on the human body.

Rather than rejecting the two bids received to install the new field, the board will allow them to ride for the 60 days they are valid. Then, if nothing changes to give the board confidence to move ahead, the bids will be allowed to expire.

Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lorey told the board that she and the turf committee felt it was best to wait to approve the bids and move the project forward until the EPA makes their findings public.

The question of how long that will take looms large. It could be a year, two years – no one knows for sure.

With the uncertainty, the turf committee and the Seger family, who made a large donation to support the new field, agreed that holding off on the installation is the proper course to take at this time.

Turf committee representative Phil Seger was at the meeting last night and assured the board that he shares the concern of the superintendent and the board.

“I think that the biggest concern that I would have is not necessarily the safety of the crumb rubber product, because I do believe personally in that product,” Seger said. “My biggest concern is potential EPA action during that time which could undo what we’ve done in this case.”

The two bids on the new artificial turf field were received on February 10th from two contractors: Sprinturf in Atlanta, GA, and Field Turf, a Tarkett company based in Europe. Both were the lowest bidders on the project. The artificial turf committee went to two sites to examine installations by SprinTurf.

Crumb rubber, which is the foundation for some turf fields is made from recycled tires — one fo the sources of concern by the EPA. Other companies use material other than crumb rubber, but the cost goes up significantly with those products.

The Jasper School Board had already discussed the merits and concerns of the crumb rubber product before the decision was made to approve it for the Alumni Stadium project.

“When this information came out on February 12th, this was a new development in the whole arena, if you will. This was not a group, not consultants or something” said Seger. “Any time you bring in EPA or CDC or any of these groups as we deal with in our business, rarely does something get to an agency level that there’s not something that changes on the back end.”

He added those changes can be big changes or small changes.

“I think that if you look at it from a strict risk-reward standpoint, the risk at this point outweighs the reward,” Seger said. “I’d hate to sit here a year from now and have this group look and say ‘we kind of knew this going into this that this could be a possibility.'”

Lorey says that the time and money spent on the study of which turf field would be right for the project was not wasted. The same specifications would apply if the project moves ahead.

Lorey also reminded the board that the current grass turf field that was installed last year is still in excellent shape to take the school system through the next season and beyond.

The board disagreed with whether they should reject the bids thereby killing the project or allow the bids to ride until they expire. A motion made by board member Bernie Vogler and seconded by board president Nancy Habig to reject the bids died when it only got two out of five votes needed to pass.

The two bids are valid until April 10, 2016.