Sparks City Hall better check its liability insurance limits because legal filings may soon go thru the roof.
For more than a decade, Golden Eagle Park has been covered in toxic, lead-laden, carcinogenic crumb rubber turf made of toxic used tires. The city fathers just committed $688,737.12 to replacing it with more of the same from the same foreign-owned company, Field Turf of Calhoun, Georgia.
I’ve been warning about this stuff for four years but city hall never cares until lawyers start circling. Golden Eagle is part of a club you don’t want to join. It includes UNR, McQueen, Damonte Ranch, Manogue, Carson and Douglas high schools as well as the Jan Evans Juvenile Detention Center, all besotted with cancer-causing benzene and brain-damaging lead-laced artificial carpet.
Public officials hide under rocks when the issue is raised because the turf is conservatively and cosmetically correct: looks great and cheap to maintain.
Except that it causes injuries inward and outward. Don’t believe me? Then believe our religious leaders in the National Football League.
“Some evidence shows higher player injury on artificial turf. In a study performed by the National Football League Injury and Safety Panel, published in the October 2012 issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine, Elliott B. Hershman et al. reviewed injury data from NFL games played between 2000 and 2009. ‘…the injury rate of knee sprains as a whole was 22% higher on FieldTurf than on natural grass. While MCL sprains did not occur at a rate significantly higher than on grass, rates of ACL sprains were 67% higher on FieldTurf,’ “ according to Wikipedia.
“Studies of the safety of FieldTurf are conflicting. A five-year study funded by FieldTurf…”
Well, you can guess what that showed.
A few years ago, a group of college professors, some from Yale Medical School, were so concerned that they started a research non-profit. (Barbwire 11-24-2015 et seq. See ConsumerCoalitioNV.org/)
The latest findings by Environment and Human Health, Inc., are damning. The summary will be linked to the web edition of this column.
I submit that the injury studies alone can be used by lawyers to bring lawsuits against the city for running an unsafe facility. It’s harder to prove cause-and-effect for cancer or brain damage, as Fallon found out in researching its cancer cluster which was probably caused by titanium spewed from a local plant.
I am incensed that no one has called city hall or Field Turf to account. I’d like to see expense accounts for schmoozing. And any campaign contributions to elected officials. Too bad nobody over there reads the local paper. It’s gonna be costly in financial and human treasure.
Parents whose children have been injured playing on that stuff, please contact me. Likewise any families with (God forbid) kids who’ve contracted any of myriad diseases linked to it. I know some good lawyers and it’s time to kick ass for the kids’ sake. This has gone on long enough with no action.
How toxic is crumb rubber turf? It’s illegal to dispose of at a landfill. So just where are the worn toxins from Golden Eagle going?
TODAY’S THE DAY. Beginning at 5:30 p.m. (Wednesday Nov. 6), the local school naming committee meets in the 425 East 9th Street school board chambers. Attend if you can.
I submitted my comments last week in support of NAACP matriarch Dolores Feemster “who served this community for nine decades, much more than half of that at Hug High School. Her decades-long tenure did not end when she retired. When Hug administrators confronted an especially thorny problem or a troubled student, their reaction was very often ‘call Dolores.’
“With all due respect to all the other eminently qualified names before you, no one stands at Mrs. Feemster’s level where Hug High is involved. You may reward the example of her lifetime of service by re-naming the existing Hug in her honor while transferring Procter Hug’s name to the new high school (at Wildcreek Golf Course). When Mrs. Feemster died last year, only the Reno-Sparks Convention Center had the capacity for her memorial service. About 2,000 attended, including former Hug and NFL star JoJo Townsell, who led the many Hug alumni present in the Hug Fight Song in Mrs. Feemster’s honor. That continuity deserves respect. More at RenoSparksNAACP.org/”
The current Hug will be converted to a trade school. While she lived, Mrs. Feemster’s nearby house became a de facto northeast Reno community center. She died last year at 89.
The Washoe County School District Board of Trustees will make final decisions on Nov. 12. You can mass e the board at BoardMembers@washoeschools.net
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 51-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and first vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are strictly his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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