On Sept. 23 there was a public hearing regarding replacing the natural grass on the high school football field with synthetic turf. As highlighted in a fact sheet published by the New York State Department of Health, there are health and safety concerns with synthetic turf such as heat stress, injury, infection, latex allergy and chemical exposure. Please note that the football field and track were reconstructed in 1999. A few years later, the wood bleachers were replaced with aluminum bleachers. It's a great complex and the envy of many school districts.

The above project has been "out there" for over a year and, from what I've been told, is being funded (at least partly) by hard-earned tax dollars. This comes in the form of a special legislative grant from one of the local legislators. It is my understanding that the grant may be as much as $600,000. It amazes me that even with New York State's debt, which is estimated at over $5,000,000,000, grants of this size are still available.

From January 2000 through June 2005, I was the school district's director of district-wide operations. Part of my many responsibilities was the maintenance of all athletic fields. I can tell you firsthand that the football field was and, from what I've seen, is still in good condition. I was very surprised when I heard that the administration and the board of education were considering replacing a perfectly good natural grass turf field.

Some of my thoughts are:

The field is rarely used. My recollection is that the high school football teams (junior varsity and varsity) use this field for a total of eight games (four games each). I believe no other high school teams use it.

The health and safety concerns are numerous so I would encourage everyone to visit www.emsc.nysed.gov/facplan and click on artificial turf. You can then view firsthand the New York State Department of Health fact sheet as well as information from the U.S. Government Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I found the testing done by University of Missouri, Penn State University and Brigham Young University most interesting. Would you like your child playing on a field that has a surface temperature of over 160 degrees?

As a former Division 1 college baseball player, I've played on natural grass, the old Astroturf product as well the new Fieldturf product. My clear preference is natural grass. It is by far the best for any sport.

I believe it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to demolish a perfectly good field. More importantly, the health and safety concerns are too great. Should the board of education endorse a community vote on the above, they are doing so for purely political reasons. I would encourage the community to vote no. Instead of holding public forums it might be wiser for the administration and the board of education to focus their energies toward negotiating with the legislator to get the special legislative grant reclassified for building infrastructure. As you probably know, the high school building infrastructure is crumbling.

Edward A. Cullen