Consultant Claim: “Two vendors indicated they do not use PFAS in manufacturing and provided documentation to back up those claims.”
Response: Via a Right to Know Request, we requested the documentation for the claims the consultant and city staff made about the two manufacturers of the above-mentioned "PFAS free” fields.
After
receiving this documentation from the city Friday afternoon, we
discovered that the only “proof” provided by the first vendor, MET, is a
sheet of paper containing only a statement asserting that they don't
use PFAS.
Weston & Sampson and the city staff and former staff apparently take this on faith and expect us to as well. The second vendor supplied reports from an independent laboratory, RTI. Their lab results indicate that both the synthetic backing and fibers contain fluorine, proving that PFAS are present, particularly in the fibers. Notably, the second vendor does not discuss this in its test report. These test results confirm the testing reported in the Boston Globe and the Intercept last October.
Environmental scientist Mindi Messmer, a former Democratic State Representative for New Castle and Rye, made the following comment when we shared with her the test results: “Clearly there are other non-target PFAS in these samples. Just because they are not on the list of analytes doesn’t mean they don’t use a regrettable substitution.”
There are roughly 5,000 different types of PFAS. Testing for total fluorine content is the most reliable way to detect the presence of PFAS. The non detectable results for the 30 PFAS compounds that were tested for is not proof of being PFAS free. The total fluorine content means that one or more of the other thousands of PFAS chemicals are present in the turf fiber and backing. These test results show the exact opposite of what Weston & Sampson claims.
References: https://www.turi.org/…/TURI_…/PFAS_in_Artificial_Turf_Carpet
Weston & Sampson and the city staff and former staff apparently take this on faith and expect us to as well. The second vendor supplied reports from an independent laboratory, RTI. Their lab results indicate that both the synthetic backing and fibers contain fluorine, proving that PFAS are present, particularly in the fibers. Notably, the second vendor does not discuss this in its test report. These test results confirm the testing reported in the Boston Globe and the Intercept last October.
Environmental scientist Mindi Messmer, a former Democratic State Representative for New Castle and Rye, made the following comment when we shared with her the test results: “Clearly there are other non-target PFAS in these samples. Just because they are not on the list of analytes doesn’t mean they don’t use a regrettable substitution.”
There are roughly 5,000 different types of PFAS. Testing for total fluorine content is the most reliable way to detect the presence of PFAS. The non detectable results for the 30 PFAS compounds that were tested for is not proof of being PFAS free. The total fluorine content means that one or more of the other thousands of PFAS chemicals are present in the turf fiber and backing. These test results show the exact opposite of what Weston & Sampson claims.
References: https://www.turi.org/…/TURI_…/PFAS_in_Artificial_Turf_Carpet
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