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Basin Rec Replacing Turf Field

Snyderville Basin Recreation is replacing the turf field at the Fieldhouse starting Wednesday, July 25. Director Brian Hanton says the work will affect use of the fieldhouse for a couple of weeks.

“It does cause some interruptions with some of our field classes. Classes are being moved around, there’s a few that will be cancelled. If you have a favorite class that’s usually on the field, just check on our website and you can find out where that class is located if it hasn’t been cancelled.” Hanton said, “They’re projecting at most only a two-week process to have that filled in and ready to be used again. There will be some interruptions and at certain days the track might be shut down when they put in the infield for the turf. Hopefully that’s a limited time. We’ll try to have everything posted on-site and, on our website, as best we can.”

Some residents have expressed concerns about health impacts of using artificial fields.

“The biggest concern from a lot of people is the rubber infill. A lot of the studies we have gone through and researched, we haven’t found that there are the health concerns, as of yet, that have come up in those studies. What we’ve done is a hybrid type, we haven’t done all rubber infill.” Hanton explained, “We’re using a plastic polymer on the top part of the surface, so probably the top two and a half inches. In the bottom part the infill will be a rubber and sand mix. The rubber helps with the impact so if kids were to fall and bump their head. It’s definitely a big safety aspect to have on those fields.”

Hanton says that turf does have some off-gassing, like a new mattress, but that the chemicals released aren’t enough to harm those using it.

“There’s three different things. There’s the ingestion, the gasses, and if its absorbed through skin, like through a cut. All of these studies have looked at all of these. They will continue to be studying this process. As of now, there hasn’t been anything that has indicated that there is a health risk.”

This is the third time that they’ve replaced the turf field. Hanton says the product life of the turf is about 8-10 years.

“The first product that we had probably wasn’t the best quality and didn’t last as long as we had hoped. This last process has lasted about 9 years, almost 10 years. The typical product life is about 8-10 years, we’re right in that span. We change it out just to help increase the safety. We maintain the field, we mix it up so that the rubber stays soft. What happens over time is the compaction has more of a risk factor to it. (Such as) falls, and impacts to heads and those types of things.”

KPCW reporter David Boyle covers all things in the Heber Valley as well as sports and breaking news.
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