 Okay, we're being recorded and webinar has started. Okay. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and renewed by Governor Mora Healy, this meeting of the Board of Health we've been conducted by via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by following the instruction on the Board of Health. Posted agenda via Zoom. No in-person attendance of the members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access proceedings as soon as technologically possible. After this meeting, all of the board approved, all approved Board of Health minutes are posted on our website once they are approved by the board. I will now open this February 8th Board of Health meeting at 534 with a roll call. Risha? Here. Pramila? Here. Lauren? Here. Tim? Here. Okay, we're all here. So the next, the first item on our agenda is to review the minutes of the previous meeting. Did anyone have any comments on them? No. I did. In the, in the top, it said that I had requested that a word be changed. I think that was me. I thought I noticed because it says M Mills, which is not either of us really, but so we'll need to fix that it and change the last name there. I did have a little bit of a couple of things about the tobacco meeting. I know that was confusing enough, but I think the way it's written in the minutes is not exactly what we talked about. I actually went back and listened because I was hoping we were a little more clear than that. And we were. So, a small thing in the second line of the old business part a contract coordinator for the Pioneer Valley tobacco. It's just coalition. The word control doesn't go in there. It's not a big deal. But the second following sentence that begins at the meeting. It's about a third or a half of the way down. It's that they learned that the state had model template for tobacco regulations. That's not exactly the case. And, and so I did write a different sentence for that. At the meeting they discussed the differences between the state model template that many municipalities use and the Amherst regulations, which differ in format. When asked if this difference posed any issues for the tobacco coalition inspectors Meredith O'Leary replied she had developed a separate checklist for Amherst, but it was not a problem. And then I, I don't know why this I changed, but Emily stated that the first step in working on the tobacco regulation is to decide whether to continue using the current Amherst format for the regulation or to use the model template to develop developed by the M H O A and the M a a H B. Does anybody have any questions about that. No. Okay, so I'll forward this to Kyle and and Kiko, and we can just edit that. And then the last thing I noted was on the second page. New business playground surfacing in the second paragraph. It just says M would the project manager manager. And it's her title is really the owners project manager. And that makes a difference because she actually works for the town that she's hired by the town from a company different from the designers and developers of the project to kind of represent the town's interest and to keep things moving along. So, I thought that we should add owners there. So, I know with can we get a motion to accept the minutes with those changes. I'll propose that we accept the minutes with those changes. I can second. Okay. And we can vote then. I'm just going by the order my screen which keeps changing. Lauren. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Tim. I was not. I was not. I forgot Tim you weren't there. Maureen. Yes. So the minutes are accepted. Okay. This goes away. And now, I guess we have the time for public comment. This time is open for public comment for topics that are on the agenda and the time per person is limited to three minutes per person. I had someone keeping time a track of the time. No, I guess we could. I can do that. Okay. Five minutes. I said three. Three. Got it. Okay. Promoting Tony to panelists. It's just who popped up first. Tony, you have about three minutes and you can go ahead and speak. Hi, thank you. I'm calling today about the playground surfacing decision. I've been following the elementary school project since the beginning and have also learned in the last couple of years about the presence of toxic chemicals in rubber poured in place, unitary surfacing and also in artificial turf. But that was a separate project you talked about before. So tonight I just wanted to advocate for a surfacing for the new school playground that does not contain toxic chemicals such as lead and potentially PFAS. My preference would be for the engineered wood fiber per the Tory report, the Lowell Sustainable Center recommendation. But I understand there's a preference for a unitary surface. And in that case, this new product, well, new to the U.S. corkeen seems like a really good alternative. So I'm just calling today to advocate for that. And thank you for looking into this. Thank you. I'm going to make them a. Tandy. Then we have one more raised hand, Maria. I'm going to promote them to panelists. Okay, Maria. You have three minutes. Hi there. Thank you, Maria Kapiki South Amherst forgive my hat. It's cold in my house. So also commenting on the rubber poured in place. I understand that you've received my follow up email to you. Um, and yes, for, uh, I really encourage the board of health to take a stand and advise against the inclusion of rubber poured in place, particularly at this site as the conservation commission has already indicated their concern about, uh, uh, the problems to the environment because this is adjacent to the, um, to the Fort River and there's drainage into there. Um, for all the reasons that, uh, that, that Tony stated, there's lots of chemicals. Um, six, uh, PPD quinone was another one that, uh, that has recently come up. And I understand that, um, uh, uh, um, the, you, you, you've gotten that. So I'm not going to go into all the other things, but that leads by VOCs, all these things. Um, Corkine does, uh, uh, provide an excellent alternative. And I would hope that you would ask them to, uh, the, the building committee to really, uh, consider using that it has all of the protections against, uh, falls and, um, and it has all the accessibility wheelchairs can roll and it's a unitary surface. I had the opportunity since your last meeting to make calls to a bunch of, uh, places throughout the U S, and there are a number of companies that are installing Cork, important place now, the Corkine. Um, so that's a good thing. And they, uh, the people that I talked to are like, we get many, many calls every week, um, about this. I also, uh, was able to track down. Some testing that, uh, in, in a playground, uh, on the East coast where, uh, they wanted a seven foot fall, critical fall height for, for the piece of equipment. And they did the testing on it and they just, they, they, they just like with rubber port in place, they pour a thicker surface, the, the higher the fall height. And they did G max testing and all these other, the critical fall testing for the head injuries and everything. And it tested fine. So it has all the benefits, um, but not the downsides, um, of the, the chemicals that are in rubber. So again, I encourage you to, to, um, advise that for the health and safety of the users. Um, and the environment. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. So, um, if, is that all the comments as far as you know, Kyle? No other hands are raised. Okay. Um, so we'll move to old business. And we will start with. Tobacco regulations. Um, tobacco sales regulations to be specific. Um, and I hope this, we were able to. People were able to get a better handle on the. Change that we were talking about last. At the last meeting where we were going to start by just comparing. The Amherst. Um, uh, tobacco sales regulation with the model or sample format from the MAHB or. From 2020, the most recent one we have access to is 2023. We will probably be working on the 20 with the 2024 one, which will be out any, any day. Did I guess my question is that people understand the question about the actual regulations. Um, the different, um, formats of the, of the rule regulations. We are really not right now talking about the actual regulations, just about how they read and how they are put together. Are there. Any questions about, about that. I'm sorry. I am. I am trying to just clarify. One of the documents, like, um, What we want to answer in the pose and cons and it was like. Six or five questions. You just, we're not, we're not going to be voting on those today, but we might go over them. We would like to go over them and just kind of, um, Explain them a little bit. Um, so we know. You know, we can be prepared to, to look at them more closely in the next, in the next month. Um, We, once we make this decision, the. People from the M eight. One of those organizations will be actually putting it together for us. And then we'll have a document to look at and then consider the, those, um, Areas where we need to. Make a decision on, on what we want in the regulation, but we were first wanted to get through this step so then they can put it together the way we want it to be put together. Any other questions about this or. Just comments. I will say that the checklist format at the beginning. Um, Seemed. User friendly. Um, That's, you know. That, that's just for us to help them write the, write the regulation that. First checklist about the yeses and the noes. Is that what you're referring to? That doesn't end up in the regulation. That's just a helpful. Um, Summary of, of the things to consider. You're muted, Pramila. I don't think I have any questions. Um. But I have thought about which one I prefer. Um, Let's talk about that. And, and I don't have any strong feelings, but because I don't have any strong feelings, I think I would. I would put a vote in for keeping it the Amherst way. Um, I understand the benefits of it are, are really. Um, about how the logic is and. The drawbacks, you know. Are not a problem right now because they have already accommodated. Mm hmm. Us and there, there are a few other, maybe this wasn't clear that there are a few other. Uh, areas. Uh, parts of the state that are also different. It's not just that's different. I. I agree. I think the way that one of the things I think is maybe that the, I don't know how often the permit holders look at these regulations, but I think it's kind of used to the format by now. And I think the part that separates out. Okay. The adult only ones, everybody has to do all of these things. The adult only ones in addition to that need to do these four things and the. Eight non age restricted has one other regulation. I think that they need to follow. Um, I think the benefits of changing to the. The other principle that the state that the image. Um, Provides is it's easier when you read when you are updating them. Because just finding the parts. Uh, uh, it's, it doesn't follow in the same way. So it's just a little trickier on the side of updating. I don't know if other people have any. I don't know if other people have any, I feel what they, what they think they, the benefits would be or, or on either side of this. So the, the, so I was not there in the last meeting so, but anyway, just for clarification questions, the, the model one from the mass board of health, we are considering some sort of a comparing whether we need to adopt that or not. Is it right? It's just about the template. So our outline is different than theirs. Right. That's, that's, that's the difference. It's not about the content at all. And we have a different one. We either keep it or, or go back to the state one and then we can make the changes and have all the interesting discussions. The only advantage of the state one is probably it's wetted through some legal scholars. Right. No, no, it's just how it's organized. It's actually, the statements are almost, are literally identical, but they're just in put in different places. It's just an organizational change, a format change. And the words in the regulations are really the same as the, as the MAHB ones. And like I said, it's just tricky as you're, as you're trying to compare them because they're like all over the place, but you can find the same words is, if, if you look, it's just a little, little trickier for that. And I guess the section one and two on ours is simpler than the MAHB where they have all those whereas statements. We just have information about why these and why these regulations are important and it reads more easily. So, but that's not, that's not really a regulation. That's just a preamble. Yeah, I did actually have a question for the board about that. First of all, apologies, I had some major technical difficulties. I finally figured out what the problem was. But so here I am. It's nice to see everybody. I did notice the difference because that whereas language I find not accessible. It's very sort of formal. And so it's interesting that that language is there and the language in our current regulations is simpler. I think the meat of the regulations is what we're really after not the statement of purpose so much. But I did notice that the title of our regulations is I had all the documents up on my screen, but I had to restart my computer. So no, I can't see it's not in front of me. But it says specifically regulations to limit access to tobacco products for minors, whereas the document, the template that the state has used is much more generic. And in fact, the regulations aren't just about minor sales to minor. They're much broader than that. So it just kind of struck me that our title doesn't really reflect what the regulations are. So I wanted to there's something to fix. Again, that's a content issue. But so that's something to point out. Yeah. Lauren, are you able to hear us? Okay. Okay. Do you have any thoughts about this or sorry, I was going to say quickly. And I think we're getting a lot of feedback. Yeah, I think I'm pretty much okay with whatever other people have said. I just think that the content of like, whether we're making it more user friendly or things like that might depend on the format. But I think either way, I'm fine. Okay. I think our format, we spent a lot of time in terms of wording and statements and everything. And it reads well. So if we are comfortable with that, the only thing I would recommend is there was one case which was brought in about transfer of ownership, there was some ambiguity about what type of establishment we can transfer it. And I think that's the only thing you know, maybe we can clarify if you want to do any amendment. In fact, that actually was pretty clear. And I don't know why that got so far as to come to us, because it was a place that sold alcohol that was claiming because they are for over 21 people who can buy alcohol that they're an age restricted. They could qualify as an age restricted tobacco retailer. But that definition actually says it cannot sell alcohol. So I think it was pretty clear. But we can ask about that. I think I did ask Cheryl Sabar about that. And she said, Oh yeah, that was really clear. She came to our meeting that time and said, Oh, this is clear. You can't do that. So but I agree that was one of my thoughts that came up. But when I looked at the language again, it was pretty clear. But but there are areas which do need to be clear. There were other towns have had problems, but we'll get to the substance of that in a little bit. Um, can I make a motion that we just keep our format and we move forward and have the interesting discussions? Yes. Is there a second to the motion? I can second it. And should we vote? Um, now it's a premula. Yes, Risha. Yes, Tim. Hi, Lauren. Can't hear you. Okay. And Maureen, I okay. Yes, good. I'm glad we got that done. Now, we should I wondered if you would want to just go through a few of those some of those questions and as to what the issues are just to introduce them. And then we'll have a fuller discussion about it in the next meeting or or is the written document enough for that? I think that's it's an excellent explanation of some of these issues. Yeah. I'm also my computer doesn't like me right now. I'm happy to talk through it. I think the I don't want to read it to you. That's not a great use of our time together. But I can certainly sort of just the background is these are the questions that are substantial and content and don't have a clear right answer. There's a bunch of things we just have to do because we need to be aligned with the state regulations that have been updated since our last version. But these are the ones that we don't have to do. They are optional up to us. And so I tried to articulate them. You'll see that there's obviously a seventh that I've said that's a different conversation for a later time and we're sort of punting that one. But the six feel like they can be decided upon how we want to to move forward with those. And I would say that the only reason not to vote on it or make decisions today would be if there's time restrictions or obviously if there's if people aren't ready to and we want to look deeper into any of the issues and have people come and talk. But there's no reason that I can think of that we couldn't if something is straightforward that we couldn't make a decision today. I wanted to offer that I did hear from Sarah McColgan today who we had spoken with some time ago just checking in with us and offering her help. So I agree, Risha would be great to start maybe making some decisions that are easy and if they're and to start compiling a list of questions that we can pose to an expert, which we can who we can invite to the subsequent meeting to answer some of those questions. So as much as we can get done today or you all can get done today, that sounds great. Support that. So I can just sort of say the six questions and then I'll assume that people have had a chance to read and ask any questions that they want. I should say I'm not an expert on any of this. My goal is just to lay out decisions in front of us with trying to understand the pros and cons of each one. So we've got a question about the tobacco quiz. This is a specific thing that Amherst has and do we want to keep it? Do we want to try some of the other things that other municipalities have tried or do we want to get rid of it all together? Should or do our town inspectors go to non-tobacco outlets to check for regulated products? This is probably mostly dispensaries, but it could be other kinds of similar areas. Do we want to change our violation policy of automatic permit suspension on the first offense? As I've said here, that is a harsher penalty than the state has, which is, and so do we want to align with them or keep that? Whether we want to keep prohibited sale of rolling papers to minors, again, something not in the state that's only in ours, do we want restrictions on non-tobacco, non-nicotine flavored wrap? All wraps or no restrictions on either? And do we want to increase our cigar pricing minimums again to match with what the states models have now? So those are the sort of six questions in front of us. I don't know if anybody has one that they're interested in or has questions on or wants to start talking about. We start with number one. The idea is that there's a way of educating what they call tobacco handlers, people who work in stores that sell tobacco, so that they can follow the rules. It's really the permit holder's responsibility to make sure that the employees of the shop will follow all the rules. But I think the education is a kind thing that towns do to try to help them follow the rules. We don't want to just catch them doing the wrong thing. We really want them to know what they're supposed to do and to do it. The past few years, the idea was that there's a written quiz that's kind of educational, basically. If you read through it and answer the questions, it makes you think about it and then you learn something in the process. It's not clear exactly how well that has been followed. There's a lot of turnover in these positions in some of the convenience stores. There's some other ways to approach that. One of them is more formal way, which is a paid online training that's paid for by the retailer and passes a certification for that employee. It does cost money. It is a certification that the employee can take with them if they move to other jobs. The other one is that one of this MAHB tobacco control persons, I think Sarah McColgan, can go and train the trainer model where she would train the permit holder and the store's manager, and then they would be responsible for training the other employees involved. There's no data that any one process is better than any other in getting compliance up to these regulations. I don't know if people have thoughts about what seems to make sense. Sorry, is that Lauren? Go ahead. Yes, I didn't know my mute button was off. I had to say it, but you can go ahead. I mean, I was just going to say, I don't know that keeping what we have makes the most sense, and I say that because it puts work on us to keep it updated. Again, there's no evidence one way or the other that this is actually helping people learn anything per se. We can assume so, but I'm not sure I want to have to keep remembering to update it and check if the rules change that impact any of these questions. The other two seem lower effort with maybe potentially better results to go through a full training or do nothing, which is just saying it's your job to adhere, do what you need to do to do that, which presumably means learning the rules. I'm just trying to add to the conversation. I don't really have a strong preference, but I did look at the quiz questions and there were some that I wasn't sure the answers to, so it might prompt someone to gather more information or learn more. I think you have to take it in person, so it creates some kind of relation with the town and the person who's going to have the letter who's taking the quiz. I think those would be pluses, but I don't know. I mean, I always say maybe there's perhaps a way to do a combination of things, but I thought that the quiz was kind of a good thing. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part of your sentence. Your quiz was what? I think it is something that could be beneficial to keep. Okay, thank you. Is it true that it has to be taken in person? Well, it's taken at the, I think it's administered by the manager that makes sure the employee takes it when they start to work, and then it should be checked by the Tobacco Coalition inspectors when they come through each year. But it's not necessarily taken at the town. It's handed to the person, presumably, aspiring onboarding. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much quality checking happens with this, so as far as I understand it, you hire a new person, they're supposed to take the quiz, the paper copy is supposed to, it's a paper copy, so it's not online, so they're there in front of you, you're the manager, the person's filling it out, and then you put it in their file. But I don't think the Tobacco Compliance Officers check those files to see, because it's an Amherst thing. And currently, we're not inspecting, to my knowledge, we don't have Tobacco Inspectors going out to look at these files and make sure that every employee who's currently working there has filled out one of these quizzes. So I think it just begs the question of sounds good, but if it's not actually being followed up on to ensure that staff people really do have the information that they need to not do something like sell to a minor, then why make people do it? Like either improve the process or don't do it at all, it seems like is the question. Because it doesn't make sense to do something that's not really measurable. Does that make sense to you, Risha? I mean, since you sort of depth this in more depth, and that's my understanding anyway. Yeah, and you know, as you're speaking, it dawned on me that even if they were to check the file, I bet nobody checks the questions, right? Like, if the manager doesn't check if they passed, I bet, I mean, that's maybe a negative assumption, but the inspector certainly wouldn't, right? The most they'd be checking for is that this thing is in the file. And so I think a store would learn fairly quickly that it is a meaningless exercise and just check some boxes, put it in a file, we're done. Right. Yeah, it's an honor system. Right. Yeah. And I guess, again, it is sort of putting it in the train, the trainer type of situation that it kind of reinforces that the onus is on the permit holder and the manager to make sure that the employees are following the regulations. I don't think that costs them anything. I think that just, I'm not sure. Actually, I don't know the answer to that question, but It didn't cost, it was a free time. Yeah, it costs them their time. So I have a question, would an online certificate, would that be something that the inspector office, I'm not quite sure what you would keep a copy of that if it's just the owner, but would someone else from the inspector's office be sent a certificate if somebody did something online? Again, my guess is that those would be on file with the employee with the retailer. I'm not quite sure that's something we could ask about. Yeah, that's because it's something they keep with them, right? If they change jobs. So I suspect it goes in an employee file, they would either, you know, they may have another copy at home that they could take or they take that file when they leave. Don't think any copy goes to us or an inspector or any of their regulatory. Maureen, did you say you mentioned an online quiz? Is it another municipality that does an online quiz? Yeah, that's the Tri-Town Health in the Berkshires. And I think that's like, that's through that program for certification. There is actually a state that thing that covers all the state regulations that is online at the state tobacco site. And, you know, people could utilize that to some degree. We didn't really talk about that at our meeting with Sarah and Cheryl, but that's another way of assessing people's knowledge about these rules. But it doesn't, it's obviously just for the state regulations, which are the, in some ways, the critical ones, you know, the selling into a minor and what kinds of non-flavors and all of that. But anyone would have access to that. It's free. You just go to the site and you just do it, I think. I tend to just sort of putting out there where I lean on this. I tend to not want to put bureaucracy if it doesn't add value. And I feel like, you know, asking them to pay something, you know, will definitely get a reaction from all of the vendors if they have to pay for a training that they didn't have to before. Having a state one feels risky to me because there are differences for a town. And so if they then come away with flavored paper is fine and it's not here or, you know, those kinds of things that would worry me a little. I would tend to say, look, how you adhere to rules is really up to you. We can list some training options if that's something that would be helpful to you. But we are holding them accountable for the results, for them actually implementing the rules as they are in. And so it's in their best interest to know those and to make sure their staff, I mean, I feel like we're getting a few levels of mandates that don't necessarily lead to the thing, right? Yeah, I don't know if other places mandate that kind of a session with the, like what Sarah does for these retailers or if they seek that out because they want to be sure they're following the rules. Do you have a sense of that? We only know that the one just started mandating it. Sorry, I have to look at which name that is. Medway. But it sounds like it was something that was always on offer. So maybe people did. Yeah, they take it. Yeah. I think the other thing that I had talked about with Steve McCarthy who has who handles the tobacco licenses in Opengov, which is the system that people use to apply for licenses is, you know, we could conceivably integrate a quiz as a requirement of licensing that in order to license, you have to submit the results of people having taken a quiz. Maybe I don't know if it's possible to build the quiz into Opengov, like if it links you to an online platform and then people can take the quiz and that it's part of your application. That might be complicated to figure out from a tech standpoint. Maybe not something we can implement right away. But I guess that was a question I wanted to also pose is whether that is something that, as you said, Risha, let's not do bureaucracy if there's no value in it. But if it's tied to making sure that all of your staff know stuff before you get issued a license and the proof that they know stuff is an online quiz that's connected to their license application, is that a route that people wouldn't want to go in? That's interesting. That seems complicated to me partly because the nature, I think, I may be wrong, but I think the nature of the establishments and how long their employees are with them and how many part-timers they might have and that keeping track of that seems onerous from the town's point of view. Again. So the licensee is different from employees, right? So we are targeting employees to have this knowledge. The licensee might be few people. Yeah. So I think. And they must have this. They have to say they've read the regulations and understand them and whatever I think. Right. And oftentimes to your point, Tim, the licensee is the person who's filling out the application might not even be in the state. You know, they're in Houston or something. Yeah. And the manager, I guess they're manager. I guess those are the two people that need to know. Because if they're in Houston, they don't know about Massachusetts rules that well or any other state, you know, how to keep track of that. So the three options. I'm just I'm just thinking on the value. So you have the training, the trainer option. We are still unsure about whether that trainer will transfer that information to a employee with diligence. So there's also a diligence questions there. The online one, there is some cost involved. And we still don't know, you know, if that information, maybe they will just pass and then still they may not know what are some of the regulations. And I mean, just like any other online quiz, you know, so. And then what we have here is we are just guiding them to some sort of a state document to read. And then going through this quiz, you know, so still the same problems, you know, of whether to work or not. And yeah, I think, you know, if it's really not needed, we just provide it as a guidance saying that please take it. And the owner has now has a due diligence responsibility to ask the employees to take it. So I think quiz may not help us much, because quizzes is not doing much. So just, you know, having the instead of having a strict regulation, we just say as some sort of a recommendation that all employees read the document and the owner now has to follow it through. That's, you know, just removing it as a mandate. And is this just for new licenses? I might be totally off. But is this just for new licenses? Or is this like in the past, when someone took the quiz, was it when they first got a license to the quiz should be taken for any new employee. And the only check on that would be if an inspector came and looked for it. Or if there was a violation and then they looked for it. So there was no record that anyone's taken it until someone looks. But yeah, it'd be for existing license holders. Anytime someone new starts working there. And I guess I don't know, but I would guess that the train the trainer might be an annual thing that the, because the license is renewed annually that the permit holder and the manager would take. But I actually don't know the answer to that either. The more you dig, the more questions come up. I don't know the answer to that either. I actually would have assumed the opposite, which is that it's one. Yeah, one time. But, you know, part of this is it hasn't started yet. Medway just adopted it. So we don't know that yet. I mean, I'm sure it's written, but yeah, I mean, from Tim's, like in Tim's approach to say you're responsible, here's some things you can do to help yourself avoid making mistakes, having employee make mistakes or not understand the rules and to avoid penalties for those things. So there are some options. Yeah, that sounds of what we sounds like the way forward to me as well. I was just wondering too, in the past, when there was the in person quiz, did the office that, you know, gives out the quiz? Can't they just make a copy of it? Like, I always, I think it was us that created the quiz, the Board of Health created the quiz and promulgated it to the person who holds the license so they could help their new employees learn the rules of tobacco sales. So it is the onus was on us to kind of keep that up to date, as Risha was mentioning. But it never touched a regulator's hand. So it, you know, I provided the link for you guys, they would also have that link, they would down the owner manager would download it for the new hire, have them take it, put it in a file, not nobody from the town ever had any contact with how it's being used or until inspections happen. And to our knowledge that they're not being inspected for that particular piece of paper. I'm glad to think, sorry. Oh, I just had a question. Do we keep a copy of the quiz? Well, that's what I'm saying. We never see the quiz. It is downloaded from the internet into the manager's hand given to the employee. It never touches us or the town. Yeah, the current regulations say that employees have to pass the quiz. And the employer has to keep on file a copy of the quiz. So that's all that happens. And we don't check it after that. So I think the question is, do we keep that in the regulations? Or do we take that out? Like, do we keep it in and fix it? So it's more effective? Or do we take it out? Is that the question on the table? Just checking. I think so. Yeah. Can I say something? Go ahead. I'm just inclined to think if there's no way to monitor follow through on these regulations, whether it's quiz or an online thing, then Tim's suggestion does make sense. Here are three different ways you can do it. The one concern that I have is that the Amherst's regulations are broader. And perhaps the licensee should just be clearly instructed that there are some differences and it's your responsibility to know, if you choose to take the state test, I mean, the online one. To me, that would be the only piece that would be a disadvantage because you could hide behind. If they choose to take an online test that doesn't cover all the regulations, then they can plead ignorance. But if you make it clear or it's made clear to the licensee that it's their responsibility, then legally you have a leg to stand on, I guess. It is their responsibility. There's no question about that. I'm talking about specific options. Maybe there is already a preamble in whatever they read that says you're responsible for knowing all of this. In which case, then the question I raise is moot. If there is already, then I think it makes sense to let them have a choice of how they do it. Just replacing what Prime Minister was saying, primarily giving them that freedom to comply by giving some sort of an options for them. And one of the options in the online one, specifically saying there is so many differences between towns and between states. So I think having that qualifiers up there and it will be useful for the licensee to actually select what options they are going to choose. Is it time for someone to move? Should I move to get rid of the quiz and replace it with language that says if you would like support in training your staff, these are options. But know that some of the state ones might differ from specific towns. This sounds a little too, I'm sorry, I should wait. Is there anybody to have a second? I second it. I guess we can have a bit of discussion. I just feel that's a little too vague for emotion because we're not saying what we're actually doing and maybe we should work on on the sidelines of bringing emotion back on this. But I don't know. I mean it just seems like we could just say we're not doing this but not we don't we need what we're replacing if we're going to actually have emotion to say that, I think. Okay, I think that's a good clarification. So is it enough to say we all agree that this is the direction we'd like to go in? We then put that into the revised draft that gets reviewed by all of us and we vote on it then once we see the draft. So all we need to know is that's the direction we're going. That doesn't need a motion. I think that makes sense to me. Excuse me. I was just trying to add the options all include some form of a quiz and they can decide how they train their employees, how they on the requirements, whether it be on the quiz, whether it be someone from inspection that comes and helps them train their employees. I just I don't know if we're getting rid of the whole idea of a quiz or if somebody clarified that for me. I think what I was suggesting based on what I was hearing was getting rid of the quiz that that's not something we would keep updated and we would take that away as a requirement. That leaves the onus on them, which it always was, but to figure out how to make sure that their staff know enough to adhere to the regulations and we can just give them resources that are available if they want help doing that, but not mandate anything and not check anything which we aren't doing now. So the issue again is updating keeping things updated because I think a quiz is a type of resource so we can go in either way but I like the quiz as a resource if other people don't. Well it's a resource but it's mandated and then there's no enforcement of it, which feels like a not so. Yeah so it could be a resource that we can provide. Here's an example of a quiz you could do, but we're not going to say it's a requirement because we're not following up on it. So why require something that we're not enforcing? That feels just pointless. I think that's what you're saying, Lisha. So yes, include it as a resource but don't require it. Although then it would have to be kept up to date too. So that's not that hard. That's not that hard. Right. That's better than saying we have to go out there and check these things every couple of months, which is just not realistic, you know, with staff turnover and all that kind of stuff. So it need not be in a quiz form. We can just translate that into a fact sheet and then, you know, that fact sheet could be a resource, you know. Yeah, we could pick two. A simple flag version of the regulation. Exactly. Aimed at an employee who's actually at the counter, I guess. Yeah. So we have a motion on the table. What do we do with it? I think you clarified that we don't really need a motion. What we need is maybe, and I don't know the correct terms for this, but like some way, a vote of indicating that this is the direction we want to go in and that on the side, I or you will try to work up the wording and then submit it back for review. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we, I think we can withdraw the motion and just hold on to the idea and put the word, put it into some wording and go from there. But yeah, and I just want to make sure that, you know, me as the loudest person is not making the decision is everyone feeling like this is the right direction to be going in. So we're taking away the mandate. We will keep some resource that we create specifically for Amherst and we can point them to others that exist. Does that feel like what everyone wants to do? Say a yes. I just feel like, you know, if the oldest is on the employee, a quiz might be helpful and I don't think that, you know, we should try to get away from that. Just because we, you know, want to change the way that we're doing things. Like I just, I just feel like, again, when I looked at the quiz, there were things that I didn't know and there might be, it just might be helpful to be in a quiz form that could be some sort of resource. So I would not, I'm not agreeing to getting rid of a quiz as a resource, but not the one doing the final work. So I thought we were saying that the quiz would be one of the options. At least that's what Risha was saying. Am I wrong? I mean, I think initially we thought we would ditch the quiz, but if the quiz can be kept as an option, the only issue would be needing to update it. But, you know, it just seems to me that if we're not checking, it doesn't make sense to mandate something. Yeah, so I was going to ask Lauren, would you be comfortable, do you want to keep the mandate or are you comfortable just keeping it as a resource? No, because you clarified that there's no one to, you know, or follow through with, you know, mandating something that is not being followed through, you know, as, you know, either an inspector going out and seeing if they took the quiz or passed the quiz or, you know, but I just, I'm not, I'm just saying that I think a quiz form in some form could be still a resource. Okay, then I think what I'm hearing is that we're all on the same page, so we'll keep the resource, drop the mandate. Okay, great. That took a long time. As these things do. I'm wondering if maybe we, I don't know how flexible the agenda is, but we might not have time to go through another one. I wonder if there's a simple one that seems simple. So bar one seems simplest to me. I would say let's try to take that on. We'll chip the way at these things. Okay, so if you scroll to the very last bit, and I'm trying to find it. Okay, so currently our cigars, so we just background there are minimums for single cigars so that they don't sort of appeal to younger people who don't have as much money as really easy things to buy. I'm sure that can be said better if someone wants to to do that. The, our current is $250, $2.50 for a single cigar and minimum $5 for two or more cigars. And the the state ones have those prices at $2.90 instead of $2.50 and $5.80 instead of $5 and they are saying that the reason for that change is inflation and it's up to us if we want to mirror that. So the decision is to keep our current prices or raise them to the state level prices. And again these are minimums we aren't setting their actual prices. I don't know how they got those very nice numbers 2.9, 5.8. It looks like really based on some baseline and then they added like 3% 5% like that. So I think you know keeping some sort of around at numbers is much easier you know. Are you voting for- Either we going, I'm just saying you know we go with what we have right now or round it to like a $3 or $6 like that if you really wanted to increase the price. And I guess one point that I didn't say is our prices match what their prices used to be. So the base that they were using is the same as we use now. But yes your point has taken that round is much easier to remember. I guess the thing comes up as the inspector's issue too though if we're following along with I don't think that says we can't do that because I think what Meredith O'Leary does is she looks at everybody's town's regulations who are part of this Pioneer Valley Tobacco Coalition and just tells the inspectors what they are like the prices. You know so we can do what we want. Is it easier in some ways to stick with the state? That's a question but I don't think that should be a heavy weight on this discussion but it's one of the things to think about. Following up on Rishu's original comment on you know having higher price so that the younger users will be discouraged right. I'm just curious if $2.90 is a discouragement for I mean you know you're creating some sort of economic disincentive for them not to use it you know but if that small difference will make big difference for them you know so but but if that is a purpose of this pricing maybe a rounded higher price is much more appealing than a lower price keeping the price at $250 you know so if you want to do that then we can have $2.90 or $3 you know for single cigar. It does make sense to me to account for inflation so you know I would be inclined to think it should be increased something to be said for uniformity in terms of the state's pricing but you know I totally get what you say Tim it is easier to make it $3 and $6.00. If neighboring towns are having $2.90 and we are having $3 I think probably the youth will go out of this town tonight to buy that to save the 10 cents right. Just good but I think I'm favoring like a price increase but rounded price you know so it's easy to monitor and inspect it. I actually I think price your comment there about price differentials from the neighboring towns is not it's not just a joke I mean I think we don't want to put our vendors at a disadvantage point so you've actually convinced me to adhere to the state numbers rather than round up but yeah and I think I mean although it seems easier to say oh it's three and six the state and the inspectors are going to know the $2.90 and $5.80 by heart so um I guess I favor raising them and maybe sticking with the state at this point. Just seem like it would be a more uniform and be less complicated so I would agree. Any other discussion I think this is something we could make emotional tonight. I would say let's be uniform and just say we will put this in the final and that's something that everyone we vote on the final. Okay so we'll just say so far we agree that we'll move them up to the MAHB suggested prices and we'll keep track of all these these decisions along the way. All right so. I would guess that's the time we have for this discussion. I think so I think so partly is the other two of the other questions are really complicated I think are going to be a longer discussion so we'll save those for a special day. All those wraps are confusing. All right so if that's good so we made some progress on these things that's good let me get them out of the way. Our next item can I just ask so then do we do we feel like we're not yet in the position of wanting to invite a expert to the next meeting we want to get some more questions for tell me. What do you think Risha? I mean if they're willing to I hate to waste their time if you know we don't end up having a lot of questions but I think Maureen is right that people are it might be helpful to have people a deep understanding of flavored wraps. I agree. It's a complicated more complicated than cigar pricing. Right and I and they know a lot more about these issues than you or I so I think this is I think getting some of these things kind of cleared out of the way we'll leave discussion of the ones that are more difficult and and if there is it will try to provide information to people ahead of the next meeting where we discussed this to kind of get wrap their heads around it a little bit and hope I think we might have some more also of an update of the our regulations and to kind of be able to see them all together and where these fit in. Okay so you do anticipate that the wraps discussion would be at the next meeting and it would be good to have somebody like Sarah or Cheryl there. Yeah unless there's something that's major that comes up between now and then that bumps these ahead I think this I'd be great to move along on on the real meat of these changes. Got it okay right. Okay so so we'll move to the playground surfacing question and I'll just introduce it a little bit. I think we had from our last discussion I think people are familiar with this and since then in the interval Kiko has had a chance to speak with Lindsay Pollard and Rachel Massey from the Lowell Center for Sustainable Planning formerly known as Tori and also Diana Zuckerman who is the President of the National Center for Health Research which is a think tank that looks at these issues of of health risks in the in the community particularly they look at lead. Okay so Tim is going to kind of summarize some of these issues for us and then we can have maybe a little bit more discussion. One of the things I meant to say is that while we invited people from this Lowell Center it's no longer free because things changed about their grant and they are no longer really supported by Massachusetts they're reported by some people in Pennsylvania but the discussions nonetheless were really really helpful so I'll let Tim go ahead just but just to clarify on that so Lindsay Pollard and Rachel Massey are the folks who authored that December 2023 report from Tori about playground surfaces they're the people who wrote that and they're researchers that were affiliated with Tori so Tori still exists it's just their affiliation has changed they research affiliation has changed they're now with the Lowell Center for Sustainable Planning still at UMass Lowell so they just you know researchers sometimes have to chase funding streams so they're in a different place and their funding doesn't allow them to do work in Massachusetts anymore that's why they're in the position of having to charge they're they want to try to change it but right now it's hard for them to do work in Massachusetts because they're funded to do work in Pennsylvania. I don't know if anybody noticed but Lindsay Pollard was an attendee uh but we lost her to the lengthy tobacco distinction so she's not an attendee anymore. Oh I didn't know that I didn't realize wow I saw her name under the attendees so that's unfortunate yeah okay good to know I think we have to be better about sticking to our agenda times next time so yeah thanks okay sorry go ahead I'll turn it over to Tim. Well this is a quick overview I know that there were some discussions in last meeting but based on my just reading in I just compiled some some notes both from literature but also from general articles which are reliable you know so so much of these playground surfaces are derived from sort of recycled tires so these are materials that are usually associated with a variety of ingredients like which are probably toxic in the ingredients especially heavy metals of and literature has a lot of observation on high amount of zinc lead is also had been observed um volatile organic compounds are of uh and also semi-volatile organic compounds these are also uh associated with these materials when they get heated um when during the hard days usually they get volatile volatile these you know these are emitting and and then there's also particulates and uh polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons also also PAHS are also uh associated with these materials so there are several observations both global but also uh in specific places like Korea and Spain they had been um doing some sort of a lot of research on trying to find what are some of the contaminants um either leaching out but also uh in the emissions and and once the material get degraded you also have some sort of a these materials now entering into soils and run of water and then I think in last meeting I saw the minutes they're also talking about um potential pathogens associated with these these materials um there are some concerns about these diagrams and also synthetic turf fields having uh partial possible exposure to microbial pathogens uh especially one of which of concern is the MRSA strain which is um which is a resistant version and so so there are lot of concerns about you know what are the um influences of these um uh and and their impact on the health uh and the risk of this export chemicals um and um I know they too rehab some nice uh compilation of reports about what are some of the alternatives and uh what are some of the specific uh contaminants of concern uh from from these materials so I just want to highlight some studies um and then uh I will I will give my opinion on how we could actually go forward forward with that so one of the study which was which came out um more recently in the science of total environment they they had been looking at some of the uh the so this is a global evaluation of looking at crumb rubber um worldwide uh used in uh synthetic turf football pitches so this is a worldwide study uh they assessed 42 organic compounds and um and they found a presence of pH these are hydrocarbons um in many of the samples they collected um and some of them are endocrine disruptors um like for example plasticizers and so uh there is some sort of a presence of hazardous chemicals in in these types of recycled uh materials they found uh so this is samples got uh which were throughout the throughout the world um the second study which was also more recent uh in chemosphere uh they were actually assessing um uh synthetic turf uh primarily in the in the angle of uh end of life tires and how it impacts in a circular economy type of a perspective and they observed uh zinc occurrence of zinc iron magnesium aluminum chromium lead um especially uh have potential implications for you know a significant to anger adults anger individuals for usually us sit with those uh playgrounds um there's another study more these are all 2022 studies which which came out like a year ago um uh this is in about in how it translates into soil and water contamination um so this study came out in polymers which were actually evaluating and they measured uh some of the increased in concentration of zinc pH which is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons uh in freshwater organisms so there is some sort of aquatic ecosystem impacts when they are leached out or washed out washed off from the location um the other another study which is like a two years ago uh which was focused on crumb rubber um they found that um they some of those recycled surfaces which they actually met some of the european commission's uh um uh standards but some of them specific ones they exceeded several in some specific cases exceeded the allowable limits especially endocrine disruptors um which were uh reaching parts per million concentrations so um and then the the lastly I want uh mention this also came in it's uh just last year um they did a ecological one health impact of this potential toxic substances of recreational crumb crumb rubber come you know uh materials and um they found that they are essentially um uh released during some sort of the play and sports activities and how some of the maintenance procedures and and also natural weathering also can enhance some of these substances to um the leach and also uh emit during some hot surfaces so so these are some but still the science behind it is slowly catching up with this one because there's a heavy uh influence of there's so much popular it becoming very popular and people are using it but also there's concern and then the science is catching up with a lot of studies emerging um so one um motivation on why this this has used is to actually have a less amount of injury injuries uh to the falls or bruising and everything having some sort of a cushioning when there is some sort of a fall like a 10 feet fall or something um but that is the that is some sort of a benefits on one side and then you have the costs of others so you have crumb rubber uh and then you also have pore in place type of plastics you know or rubbers uh which also have a little bit compacted they are not like loosely uh moving around but they have some sort of a one concern is the duration how long they last once they last and they become you know hardened and the edges will start to crumble and uh um it still could have some sort of issues uh when the uh life of that particular pore in a pore in uh place type of rubber uh is coming to the end end of that life lifespan so these are some concerns and often um the the decision makers have to weigh in between these two things do we actually have uh uh benefits of actually preventing any type of bruising and cushioning of some of the plays and everything but you also have long-term implications of contaminants emanating leaching and running off and so so that is where the value comes in and uh in terms of the decision makers so should we adopt it by weighing in these two pros and cons and uh and um as a board of health one thing we we focus more on the public health side of things and having some sort of our opinion and also having some sort of our statement out there will be always helpful on the public health concerns of these installations so that's what my my take on this is thank you there's some other things that from those conversations that i might also want to highlight and um the the fact that is that the port in place rubber uh installations it's not one size fits all it really depends on the on the the installer and the specific types of materials that they're using and they can it can vary quite a bit with in terms of what kinds of rubber is in there whether it's from rubber whether it's what's so-called virgin rubber whether how it's installed is really came from the the folks from Tori and so it's like you can't just say or it's it's really many different things plan a lot of questions as to what what they're sorry i don't know if you can hear me but you're breaking up a bit so we're missing chunks of what you're saying oh it might have been muted this no okay no it's you're not muted but you're breaking up a lot so we're missing what's going on you're saying yeah oh i'm so sorry it's just i guess that's just saying was not one size doesn't fit all way when you go from one company to another you should ask questions and know what you're getting um another thing that just came out is that recently that the EU has uh banned the continued use of crumb rubber in athletic fields and they're phasing it out i guess if you have an athletic field um you can keep using it for the next eight years but then they're that's going to be going it all they're also banning it in a lot of other products but that one was the relevant one to to our discussion so like tim was saying the the science is kind of moving in a direction now that that's that's questioning the use of it in around children and in the environment um i have a kit of engine i so marine can you hear me it's kiko um can you hear me wait you you were coming in loud and clear for a little while and then you started breaking up again so what's going on you might want to try turning off your i see that it's breaking yeah if you turn off your camera sometimes that increases your bandwidth for sound you could try that see if that helps um and i see that risha risha has her hand up i don't know if you can see that kiko uh i can't i it was all everything was frozen okay kiko lauren is in attendees you know i think you have to promote it's the video button oh i can do them i'm sorry thanks kyle thanks for noticing that tim um so marine while you're fiddling with that can we hear from risha while you're trying to get yourself yes okay go ahead well i don't have uh anything to add i have questions um and tim thank you for that because i i have um struggled to get my head around some of these and it's useful to hear the summary um i i just wanted to understand this the uh the studies that you quoted are they all on one type but towards the end then you mentioned uh the port in place but were the were the first studies all about crumble yeah most of them are for crumbled rubber um so the first five studies i mentioned are tire crumb rubber studies but they have used so this is one of the big ingredients in in many of the playgrounds you know so they are studying worldwide and i believe um um i don't think i have yeah all of them are crumb rubber primarily these studies okay okay and then what what are the limits of what we can do what are the i want to make sure before we i start thinking about you know solutions or recommendations what we can't mandate anything right so we could make a recommendation that they avoid x or that they adopt y or is that the where we're heading with this so my i mean the the couple of outcomes in off what we are going to do so i think we are going to highlight uh the public health concerns related to this of course there are other values and benefits for students and playing and everything but our focus is on public health and the recommendation is to actually be aware of this when they are making a decision and then try to find um mitigation options to avoid any type of a um um excess contamination or exposure or um exposure for children and everything or youth uh or the other option is to actually find alternatives like they were they were talking about cork based playgrounds you know so so giving them some sort of a suggestion on the board you know on the public health angle um and and making the suggestion that you know this the decision makers should seriously consider uh the implications the environmental implications the health implications of these decisions yeah and i think it's i'm i'm glad you clarified that public health includes the environmental health um and presumably the injuries yeah as well as yeah chemicals okay that's all i had yeah actually can i i see premilla's hands is up i don't know how marine is doing so i'm just gonna say one thing um in response to your question marisha which is that um the the board of health did make a motion about artificial turf before you joined the board and the wording is basically given the responsibility of the board of health under the massachusetts general laws and under the um for the protection of the public's health and the protection of the environment using the precautionary principle that states of a product an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment protective action should be taken and that the board of health does not support the installation of artificial turf so that was the wording that was done before and i think what the board is talking about is something similar for this situation and marina looks like you're back can we hear are you marina looks like you're back i think marina is joining from two devices probably so that's why we're hearing the echo um premilla do you want to make your comment while she's trying to get back on sure um i just two things one is i think my understanding is that where we are all we can only make a recommendation and that's what we're doing and i the wording that you use for PFAS so it seems to me yes you know that instead of specifying an alternative that we should you know urge them if that's what we decided and agree upon to not use this particular product and to explore other um alternatives you know again because because of the our mandate being health basically the other thing i wonder is you know the the other rubber products tim maybe this is a question for you i mean i'm sure there are different types of rubber but i'm assuming maybe incorrectly that they all have the potential for toxic chemicals and uh the ocs and you know if the studies are only i mean are there no studies on other products or oh there is a question for me yes okay so i specifically focused on crumb rubber which has been published more you know in the past couple of years i think there is a lot of interest in environmental implications and soil and water and aquatic ecosystems um so there are you know i haven't looked at other studies where they have substituted this recycled crumb rubber with other products like like a virgin rubber or other other um others which are not recycled from some other uh commodities like tires you know because for tire wear and tear they add a lot of those contaminants you know and when you recycle them they are coming into this this um uh crumb rubber compound so um i think you know morrin mentioned this that uh some of the companies which are actually producing this they have some sort of different ingredients some of them have recycled rubber recycled tires some of them have a mix some of them have the pure you know virgin rubber which which um which could have some sort of a um uh contaminants but they may not be uh as severe as the recycled crumb rubber uh which is coming from the tires recycled so um so i agree uh i think you mentioned that our recommendations should not include specific products alternate products but give them that particular option of saying try to look for some sort of alternatives which are having lesser impacts of the environment and the health so morrin are you back can you i think so can you hear me yeah we can hear you now yes so far so good which to my phone hot spot and that seems to be working better this amount of my daughter's house and the internet it's not always i don't know stable um so morrin you and tim had actually uh wordsmithed a statement that was um with starting with the same sort of text that i read that was similar to the beginning of that artificial tour statement about the precautionary principle and the responsibility of the board and then saying something about um advising that you avoid or limit the use of materials that contain certain chemicals poly aromatic hydrocarbons heavy metals microplastics pahs um gel poly aromatic hydrocarbons um and and that those are things that are present in from rubber um and also to some degree in other types of rubber so that was kind of the idea was that it would be a statement like that avoid materials with these kinds of chemicals um but then i think the question is along the lines of what you were asking premilla is it just there's a lot of evidence that crumb rivers really quite awful and then other synthetic rubbers maybe not as much evidence but still some evidence that it's not the best um you know not the safest so would we would the board want to issue a statement just about crumb rubber or would it be about all kinds of rubber as an important place rubber correct because we do i mean the terry folks and also diana zucerman who i spoke to and and you mentioned this also tim is that even if the unitary surface is not as bad as what's underneath the what's underneath can come up through that unitary surface it get the wear and tear on it especially in spots where kids are playing a lot like the underneath a slide where there's a lot of um you know impact over years that that crumb rubber they don't last as long as maybe people think and then what's underneath is really a concern that quite a toxic material that's underneath and knowing what we what uh uh tim has told us about the studies about crumb rubber it seems to me that you know to use any rubber you'd want to make sure that it didn't have the contaminants that crumb rubber has and you know if there aren't any studies then the um the manufacturer is not going to be able to prove that so it just seems to me logically if this is true about crumb rubber that it would make sense to look at the other products available i guess that's really the question i think in terms of do we want to make a statement like that that whether to avoid crumb rubber or all types of rubber that might be uh problematic in this kind of use i i don't know i um i'm really struck by how awful all of them are i mean that that there didn't seem to be a single good option on the tables that that are in the various reports i mean they all have um i find myself being like let the kids get hurt i don't want to end uh you can at least fix an ankle um but i think you know i i talked about mold concerns last time i mean there there are such a wide variety of negatives on almost all of these surfaces the one that stands out to me is anything using recycled tires um that that feels like the worst of the worst um and and the the best of the things seems like a relatively the the is it the cordon cork or the something you know is outrageously expensive and so it's not well it's incrementally expensive i think i think that i think they set up to a hundred thousand dollars more but i think the price of the port in place rubber is somewhere in the range of a million dollars for that installation i just i just want to say that i really do think we need to focus on all the health aspects not the price i agree i hear you i just i don't want to make a statement that gives them nowhere to go um well there are alternatives you know and and none of them are perfect you're absolutely right um but it seems to me even if we used a different type of rubber not enough is known and it's it would be strange to say well i mean they they i guess that their the conservation commission um statement was about port in place rubber and that it just makes sense to me in terms of avoiding avoiding you know environmental damage and damage to children's health yes there are other concerns but you know there are in terms of falls maybe you know the the cork product but um there are other places that have installed the cork product and obviously there are rules in terms of you know height to prevent falls and so on and or injury from falls and you know that particular product met those requirements um maybe the uh they uh would fiber did too but you know i'm just saying that these things that are in use i i'm i'm i'm less inclined to think that uh the cork issue or the bonded wood fibers or uh are definitely unsafe and and you know again i mean it's our job not it's not our job to find alternatives it's our job to comment on what or we've been asked to come in on what's being proposed you know i get it i i i wouldn't want to be some the person who has to decide well then what are we going to do with the money that we have but and it's let's be in proposed court in place is there a court in place rubber yep well that i i think if i'm not mistaken uh at the last meeting uh more incorrect me if i'm wrong that's the term she used and i think that the plan was to use crumb rubber but but she pointed out that there were alternatives uh uh in terms of the type of rubber my understanding about this is that there was a discussion a lot of discussions or earlier maybe with even almost a year ago um about what type of surface and they went through a lot of discussion about options and came down on the idea that the that the a port in place rubber and it wasn't specified which types of materials would be included in that i think that wasn't as my understanding is that the that wasn't down to that specificity and then these questions came up just in the last couple of months like december november december uh the the concern about the use of this these rubber materials in this sensitive site and with other issues around children as well um and so that's it's kind of kick you know kick the kick the problem open again so i don't think anything's been decided i think it's really not finalized and it won't but it will be soon it it needs to be soon finalized soon yeah so just to add some information and to clarify that so the conservation commission was not happy about the port in place playground for largely for environmental reasons and so they were asked this rubber you mean port in place rubber yes sorry um so they approved the order of conditions to move forward with the project without a decision having been made about the playground surface so that other aspects of the work could continue so now it's up to the design committee and the town to decide what playground surface will be used and then they'll have to come back to conservation commission for it to be approved so marine's right that it's in a holding pattern um but but there was definitely concern expressed about port in place rubber by the conservation commission that's where they approved it without that decision having been made so this is how it's an opportunity for the board of health to also weigh in as you keep saying primal about the health issues you know what are the health things the chemicals that the board is concerned about that these surfaces might contain excuse me can can i just ask a couple of questions um i i don't know how long we want to stay on this topic but um we had mentioned some other playgrounds um such as the new park and i'm just wondering was the same um delineation or contemplation thought of you know for that park and if not why not um and also i had mentioned before even though i do not know a lot about you know all the materials is drainage was a issue that i brought up and i know that you have we all have expressed that it's the designer square going to have to make all these kind of decisions but i don't know if that is uh issue that they'll have to look at or if that's an important issue of like the drainage and um yeah i just i just want to wanted to add that um just from my reading i just want to say that drainage is apparently better with parkine than with rubber port in place and um this isn't necessarily drainage but i think it was runoff that was the issue also for the i think it was it was runoff but also it was runoff that was primarily the concern for the conservation commission or a concern of the conservation commission which resulted in them and i'm not i know that drainage and runoff are completely different terms but um i just wanted to point that out that runoff is an issue other comments or questions i think in uh in the pouring place option of course the crumb rubber is some sort of a i would say some sort of a glue together i would say they don't fly around uh um so there are a couple of things you know so if it is made of crumb rubber that which is actually recycled rubber versus a a virgin rubber which is actually has less contamination so those are some of the options they can think about have some sort of a uh material which has which which is tested and doesn't have any type of a potential health assets um the other thing i think they were mentioning about the runoff if i if i'm correct you know i think it's it's probably affecting Fort River um but um that will be the same case if you put a parking lot or a or a house it will also have runoff you know so uh so that may not be a good argument right away but if it's going to be a very extensive playground with completely pervious runoff there might be more water running off of that having downstream sediment loss and stuff like that so that's one potential implications of this pouring you know pouring place rubber compounds does the fact that um the leaching of of materials into that space so um it it actually happens i think the leaching when it starts to the installation starts to get to the end of life you know that's when i think most of the impacts are going to happen and i think when it's installed it may not because it's all uh bound together you know the individual particles you know so uh but um uh the the how much is the lifespan of that particular installation some people say you know whatever is being uh designed for and and promised in the manufacturer side is always not true they they just start to degrade very early so when they are degrading i think the edges are something which will start to disintegrate and start to enter into your runoff so that's where i think we will see and the leach if the leachates potentially coming out are usually those uh uh those areas where that it starts to disintegrate especially when it is exposed to freezing and thawing and some of the areas will start to see it's actually breaking apart and those are the where you might see some sort of a leachates entering it entering through the infiltrating water oh sorry go ahead i was just gonna say are we at a point of making a decision or proposing a motion one suggestion i would make is we have to be uh we we have we make decisions about evidence-based you know so we don't want to have some sort of very generic so all rubber is bad or something like that so we just uh we know that there is uh uh evidence on some sort of contaminants in the crumb rubber and use of them in any type of a design um is some sort of a not desirable so i'm more in the favor of not having a very blanket type of a uh recommendation of every rubber because we have automobiles having tires you know they're all rubber so instead of that if we just focus on the crumb rubber as our main main opinion i think that'll be much more impactful you know so do you want to make a motion to that effect is that what you were saying yeah let's see maureen were you trying to say something sorry no i did i wasn't sure if that was directed to me or him the question i was directing that to tim okay so uh i i think you know we we have two options for making a motion one is focusing on crumb rubber based on the studies i i mentioned or having the second option which is actually for um uh any type of a uh rubber you know which is actually use of synthetic rubber products any synthetic does not support the use of any synthetic rubber products that is the second option um well no i well i was thinking more just poured in place rubber i wasn't i mean i know rubbers widely used so anyway that's i mean i can certainly live with uh uh crumb rubber specification um that's that's okay too it just you know who knows what else they'll come up with and what the issues are with that but that's another conversation i guess and and i apologize i i'm actually going to have to hop off at exactly the half hour but um the what i heard the first pitch or the first motion was to focus on the chemicals not the so the outputs versus the inputs right so we are we would be recommending against anything that has like pah or vocs or heavy metals um and that you know if there are alternatives that say they're rubber and don't have those things you know that that's not where we're getting into we're just getting into the that these chemicals are bad and should be avoided i don't know how practical that is because i don't know how the testing what how how much those other things are tested for the various chemicals so i think it would almost be saying there's no rubber but i'm not quite sure that there's a difference or not i don't know if you get out of tires and into virgin rubber if if those things are and and maybe they you know probably the correct is not no but at a threshold level oh my understanding of rubber is limited in terms of this i don't know if there's rubber that doesn't have volatile organic compounds or other kinds of things uh um so that i just don't know perhaps we could say you know as as tim suggested encourage well that we uh recommend or encourage whatever term you want to use against using crumb rubber and pursue other alternatives and just leave it at that i'd be comfortable with that so can i make a motion i'm just reading reading off the motion we we have written i think so um from the PFAS you mean yes based on that yeah i i make a motion that the board of health uh uh you know make a statement that it does not support the use of crumb rubber derived from recycled tires in the construction of the new school playground at this time that's how i'm just reading the last sentence i'll second the motion any more discussion i guess we're ready for a vote and i'm just going to start with risha because she has to leave thank you i i am in agreement yay okay lauren yes premula yes tim i worry yes so the motion passes all right so who is it kiko that will draft this or how does it work practically because i wasn't around for the pfs uh issue what tim because we knew this would be complicated i kiko and i and a little bit of uh had put together the words for the motion and at the beginning i could read the whole thing in one piece tim wrote the the end of it read the end of it under massachusetts general law the amherst board of health has the responsibility for the protection of the public's health and the protection of the environment from damage and pollution following the precautionary principle of public health that states that a product an action or a policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment protective action should be supported before there is complete scientific proof of risk the board advises the new school building committee to avoid or limit the use of materials that contain heavy metals poly aromatic hydrocarbons micro plastics or other components known to be harmful to children and the environment and the playground surface these chemicals are known to be found in recycled tires therefore the amherst board of health does not support the use of crumb rubber derived from recycled tires in the construction of the new playground new school playground at this time so so it's addressed to the school building committee there's the ones who have to make the decision yeah sure okay that makes sense then could i just ask one question about that which is that um the artificial turf was very general it wasn't about a specific place and the wording about what that you've just read is about the new playground and i'm just wondering whether you want it to be broader to apply to other playgrounds that might come up in the future that this you know advice is broader than just this one school site i hadn't thought about that because we said at this time you know it might because for i guess other you know further research could emerge that would change things i don't know i'm just yeah i'm just trying to think we're doing it in this moment at this time with what we know now i think down the road it might be broader or we can include other things so i think we can leave it as for not making a precedent about the any playground ever um yeah i i actually think that a broader statement is better because obviously we're concerned to me it seems we're concerned about public health everywhere and it's this particular issue that has brought it before the board but it seems to me it would make sense to have it be broader um whatever concerns we have about this particular playground would um you know would be true of other playgrounds so anyway that's what i think okay i i actually um i i'm thinking the other way because i feel like the the a new school committee is kind of asking us to to help by making a statement help them by making a statement and um so i think it it's okay that it's more specific um to this this time and this actual decision so i kind of am leaning the other way that i i think it's okay to say the new playground or be specific to this construction yeah i mean that's what we voted on i guess already because that okay so did that last sentence when we voted so um let's leave that there i think if it comes up again it won't go unnoticed okay if there's another installation that that requires a similar decision so let's leave it all right so i'm going to find my agenda i think the next is report from yeah we don't have any new business so the next thing is the next update so just keep it really brief because i know it's late i'm sure everyone's tired but um so just i like to fill everybody in on what's happening with our respiratory illness update with covid in the community so the wastewater surveillance reports that we get i don't know if you all check them as board of health members we post them on the web um but there are best indication of covid infection levels in the community and there was a big spike right after the holidays which came rapidly down but it's been plateauing and sort of going up up and down so it's not down to the levels that it was before the holidays it's still it's right now just a little under a million um gene copy equivalence for leader over a million is considered significant so we're not significant but it's not we're not out of the woods and most of us know someone who has covid right now so it's still going around um mild disease um you know definitely the hospitals i think are struggling just in general with you've probably read in the papers just so many folks coming through the ed and how difficult it can be to triage and admit folks um but you know it's not it's lasting longer this respiratory illness season than last year but with less severe disease so that's kind of the update there um we just got a whole new shipment in of 1800 more tests from the state that we got for free so we're really excited about that we're getting those out to the community people are coming by a lot of folks are interested in testing because covid is really still having an impact on people's lives um so that's kind of the respiratory illness update um i mentioned before that we're working with craig store is on a hepatitis clinic which is going to happen in march so we'll meet again before that clinic happens but that's a good partnership that we're happy about just to make sure that folks who are increased risk for hepatitis a such as unhoused folks or people who are using injection drugs are going to get vaccinated if they want that um and then the last thing that we're working on i think i mentioned last time as well is a mental wellness series um that's just starting to take shape recognizing increasing rates of suicide among young people and among just mental wellness being an issue for folks in general in our society wanting to create ways that we can foster better mental wellness in our in our community through bringing people together to talk about what's hard and have conversations and think about activities that we can do as a community to improve mental health so we're still working out the details i thought we were going to have a session this month but it turns out we're going to postpone till march so come march april we'll have some sessions on the books and we'll be promoting those through various means so you'll probably hopefully see those notices out in the community um so that's pretty much my update nothing too radical sort of the same themes but thank you everyone thanks okay it's been a long meeting i bet we're all tired right the topics not no no topics not into not anticipated by the chair so i guess we're ready for a motion to adjourn i can make a motion to adjourn and i can second okay um lauren risha yeah i can't be sorry all right yeah okay for me too okay tremola tim hi worry hi well thank you everybody um we'll see you again in the next meeting will be on march 14th 2024 5 30 right thank you everyone okay bye