 we have a quorum so yeah why don't we start to start the roll call okay uh mike i am here great leslie here great uh joe bar here great uh jill here great natasha here marvin is absent uh jim here great and then i have jill connelly i don't he wasn't going to be able to join us i believe okay and then uh clear flare ricka i see her muted oh sorry you're muted here sorry sorry i wasn't looking at your face i'm so sorry i was that's all right the other part and i'm like she's here i see her thank you all right sorry for the confusion so uh absent is just marvin and joe connelly so um jim i'll turn it over to you yes and i think uh marvin will be re joining us at the next meeting he's never he's never left the work he's just not been able to attend our last few meetings so correct um so uh we are meeting on june uh june january uh thursday january 30th 2024 i wish it was june it would be much nicer um so uh and this is uh meeting of the artist our linkedin artificial turf study committee and we have a quorum so uh first item would be uh approval of the minutes i hope everyone's had a chance to look at them and i'm struggling with my computer right now to um to pull up the minutes um atash do you want to say anything about them while people maybe give them a quick look if i could just jump in once again i just want to note how complete and thorough and well written those minutes are so thank you very much for that and uh the other part of it is i think it's very important to read some of the attachments that people have sent in the public comments because some of those documents are really quite helpful and with that i will recommend we approve the minutes that's presented yes sorry i'm still there it is okay learned about a lesson i i should have like i always do i should have downloaded this before the agenda before the meeting but um i did review the minutes so is there a motion i moved so we've got a motion from like we thank you jill okay okay all those uh in favor we'll go right down the list so mike yes okay leslie stained abstained uh joe bar yep uh jill yes okay natasha yes um marvin is not present and jim yes okay motion uh the meeting minutes are approved natasha does a great job at this and i'm so glad she is the the committee secretary i try jack of all trades but please i welcome any feedback and any so well you know i think the most helpful thing about the minutes is you know we do have people who attend the meetings and listen but um and follow what we're doing attentively but to be honest probably a lot of people who are interested in what we're doing don't have the opportunity due to scheduling or other reasons and so if they have nothing else but the minutes i mean we know we have recordings too but if they had nothing but the minutes i think they'd get a very um accurate picture of our conversations and our progress so um that's the hallmark of good minutes so thank you well i i do think that these the you know once this report goes to town meeting that the the process of the committee may be you know subject to a fair amount of scrutiny so i think having thorough minutes and we welcome it and we welcome it joe we all agree but i think it's important you know natasha's doing a great job and i think it's particularly important i like on the capital planning committee than i'm on i'm not sure if too many people actually go back and look at our minutes um and i was recording secretary for four years so i took i tried to take thorough minutes but yeah so i know how hard it is but i think this will probably get a little more scrutiny so for sure for sure as well our recordings and you know i mean i i um and i do think we will probably get more interest in our meetings as we get further down the path the next two or three weeks in terms of um of um you know progress made and as we start to sort of come to terms with some actual recommendations potentially uh so uh correspondence received is natash any want to give us the quick rundown on that sure so we have um four pieces of correspondence that we've received um we've got one email from susan chapnick it was in regards to the human health and environmental concerns particularly the investigation of pfast a second email from susan chapnick um bringing the attention to a natural grass playing field study case study at our spring field um the third from susan chapnick was um attention to the cost table from the meeting materials from uh january 23rd and i believe she was looking for some clarification um and the fourth email was from clarissa row of town meeting member as well as architect uh sorry landscape architect um just with um her her thoughts and concerns about artificial tariff um so those are the meeting minutes there were some supporting materials that were in the attachments as well all that's been provided uh so at this point um happy to discuss i would be happy to address um the human health and environmental concerns and the investigation of of pfast um so our group is definitely looking at not just pfast but a lot of other chemical materials we've just chosen not sorry chemicals and and compounds we've just chosen not to necessarily discuss that here at this point only because all of that's going to come out into our conversation and our discussion with the report so um all of the updates to date have tried to be very brief but it is not to say that we're not discussing um these important topics so i i just did want to provide clarification with that um and i think that's all i really have to say right now yeah i'll make a few comments in addition to that and just following on that comment you know yes for those who are wondering we're going to be addressing pfast the safety group we have not been looking at that because that's not doesn't really fit into our picture or our piece but i'm guessing health and environmental are definitely taking a look at pfast and or anyone worried we're going to have a pfast free report uh don't don't worry we will address that issue um the other comment i had is just um i want to just clarify two things when people submit comment and we welcome it and i read all of it and it's generally very helpful even if i don't agree with it it's generally very helpful and more often than not i agree with it um but two things uh first if someone's going to submit um something to um to make a certain point um i just would hope that they would do the research necessary to make sure that the point they're trying to prove is actually true um so if someone says you know such as such town does not have any artificial turf fields that's fine i just would hope that they would make sure that that's an accurate statement and that what they're providing us accurately reflects that that town has no artificial turf fields in some cases we receive things where on a simple google search it quickly became clear that the town did have artificial turf fields you know so people are free to submit whatever they want but you know if there's a question about its accuracy it's not helpful to the to the committee members in addition i personally do not do not care if people submit um publications from from industry sometimes industry has some very helpful view points as long as when someone does so they alert us that it is an industry back group or an industry supported group just so we have that context something was submitted i did some google searches related to one of the items and i realized there was an industry backed group um and so it's not that i discounted what i read but i read it with more context knowing that it was not a you know a neutral unbiased observer making these observations about about artificial turf so um those are my only cautionary notes submit whatever you want we'll read it we'll do our due diligence it's just as more helpful if people provide things in the proper context to us anyone want to add anything else i don't lord okay um with that keep moving working group updates we always nine attache you do the you know you help me with the agenda and you do this ordering so you know maybe one week you can mix it up but i'm perfectly fine with health going first sure happy to um so jill and i were able to meet over the weekend and we have started as i've mentioned before we we've started our our sort of report our written report and um we've started to plug in a lot of our resources so uh a lot of the research material uh jill and able jill and i were able to sort of sit down and decipher through and get them into buckets in terms of um some of the conclusions that we're coming from we're coming to not even necessarily conclusions but our research um plugging in where those research where those resources um also line up so we've been working um pretty pretty well on that we feel like we've got a good um a good sort of base going there we have talked more and more about um some of our speakers i've reached out to a few different um folks and i i still have not you know been able to reach who i who we would like to um and we are waiting to hear back from marvin but we should hear back from him this week so i'm really hopeful that we will have a presenter to to bring forth um you know within the next week or so and i jill and i also spoke about sort of uh you know what jill i'm i'm drawing a little bit of a blank i'm going to uh punt to you a little bit if that's okay so i think the thing disclosure i had um hope it this week so my brain's a little bit funky go ahead i'm sorry the things we still are looking at balancing our understanding more about usability and access to playing and contrasting that with what is true PFAS and other chemical exposure um and i was just looking through the 20 nanograms per liter is the drinking water levels per mass ddp which actually is like a pretty low number some of the other states are much higher but we don't have groundwater drinking in arlington or maybe you know there's a few people to do but most people have municipal water so i guess my question is if you're being exposed through maybe swimming in the res or walking on a field like what what kind of exposure is that and i think that goes back to what we're really looking for for a speaker um if you know if we're not talking about drinking or consuming off of products that contain PFAS what is the exposure that we're talking about and how you know what are the levels that are i don't think safe is the right word but acceptable and we are having a hard time finding um i i think i couldn't find anyone at chan school of public health that has that kind of expertise and it looks like we're trying to look a little bit at the use public health i also had a sorry well yeah i mean i think our group we end up talking a little bit of pfs in our group not that it's necessarily in our in our bucket but just because you know there was a comment made about people so we we talked about pfs a little bit in our group and i i do think it's jill your point is really important as we unpack this because there's a lot of information on pfs and and also pfs is not one thing it's it's you know hundreds of things and there are six things that you know then a focal point on pfs but there's you know my understanding is there's hundreds of things in the p pfs pfo pfos you know realm um and there's a lot of information about what has pfs and what doesn't but you know the understanding i have through work on this committee and prior prior work and other positions is that the most the greatest concern about pfs is drinking water that's not to say other concerns aren't as you know aren't important it's just the focus has always been the primary focus has always been on drinking water supply contamination and the drinking water supply um that is in my opinion and i i'm open to disagreement if there is that is not an issue in earlington we get our water from the mwr a which gets its water from the quabbin which is by all indications by the annual testing they do practically pristine when it comes to pfs um so that's not to say that pfs can't run off into brooks and rivers and you know contaminate things for fish and wildlife and and and other areas you know the res uh which would be a concern but you know the greatest concern is drinking water and that's just not unless someone's drinking from a well in earlington and maybe there's a few people who have private wells um that's not an issue and um so you know sort of is separating out the pfs issues and the various pfs and the pfs concerns can take a lot of work and i don't envy the work of the health and environmental groups in doing that but i don't know i hope i haven't said anything controversial i don't think i have but i think i think it adds to like what are the comparable communities and last time we were talking about malden being densely populated on mwra water whereas like a marthe's vineyard really probably does have different concerns so i can imagine marthe's vineyard probably has a significant amount of of well water that is used for drinking um so so i think really if we can get a person to understand what are the sources other than drinking water and teflon pans that allow this chemical to infiltrate the body and what are we talking about for levels because if you look at some of the data that was sent to us and those various testing sites the levels were levels that would be problematic in drinking water um but we're not talking about drinking water and i think and the environmental group i think is going to have different issues but as far as the health group goes that's the real question to me is is how is this entering our body and i got to thinking today we may want to look at something like age and and who has priority if we are to have turf surfaces and maybe it is the littlest kids that aren't playing on the field because they may be the most likely to like take with them some of the materials and and ingest them but i think when we're talking about older kids there's probably little in the way of ingesting so what can they get through falling on the field or just simply playing in the area can i pause the discussion for a second natash i've gotten a text from a few people say they can't get into the meeting not not members but members of the public really they say the meeting's locked or it's saying the meeting's locked okay this is a technical difficulty um i'm trying to go into the settings here i don't exactly know everything i'm doing i there are people from the public that have gotten in so yeah i will try and work on this piece i don't know what this do they have the right uh connection to you are yeah they should uh uh because we've been using the same yeah there yeah there's no password that you need to use it should just come right in the town no we did switch uh from one zoom account to another but it's been several it's been a few weeks since we've done that so yeah this person said click down link on our committee web page and getting a message getting getting message unable to join meeting host is locked a meeting okay let me see how i can get into the settings here sorry i didn't mean to break the it's okay i um mic i know you want to get in on this discussion just very briefly i think what you're saying about water supply is true that we get our water from the mwra and i think to that extent it's irrelevant for this committee's work uh about drinking water because we're focusing on playing fields so i'm not sure why even the issue of drinking water is is being considered here yeah and you know and that's an important really important point mic because when you you know i've been reading a lot about martha's vineyard and then tuck it and port smith new hampshire um the drinking water concern was a huge issue in those communities because they aren't mwra communities they are getting you know especially in antucket and martha's vineyard they already had p-fast issues related to their airports and you know the firefighter foam and and they already had things leaching in and so you know they only have limited water supply and if it gets contaminated they're they're in trouble same with port smith where they're so it's not to say that i'm not trying to diminish the issues that those communities were facing it's just not our issue here we have may have other issues with p-fast but the drinking you know things running off and getting into our drinking water supply isn't going to be one of them and we can thank the mwra for that i guess for doing a good job of keeping i just was curious to know why that even came up because we're not looking at drinking water issues in this committee as far as i know yeah well yeah well joe maybe can explain it was it was in the the information that was sent out in the packet and what you know what i was looking at is first like okay these fields are are leaching p-fasts but then what i realized is all those communities that were looking at it drinking water was a concern for them and all of the regulations we don't have there's not regulations of like how much would be in the environment it's how much p-fasts can be in your drinking water yes so that really seems to be the only regulation jim um i'm sorry to interrupt joe i'm so sorry i i did touch something on the settings here so anything that may have been locked before has been unlocked i don't know how that happened but hopefully that will these folks can get in so if you're getting messages jim ask them to to try again you don't mind okay okay now i'm getting two people i'm so sorry to interrupt just that's all right and it said the town calendar entry is is the way to go i will check in with um those folks as well okay okay good i see some of the folks yep good not sure what one of the thought of drinking water it pays you i recognize it's not an issue for harlington but we do have neighboring communities that have their own water systems and given the topography i don't think we're probably having much impact on them but you know both cambridge and uh winchester have you know their own well i think winchester is a hybrid but you know some of their own water supply and have surface reservoirs um yeah that are within the within those communities so again it's not an issue and it i don't probably not really a issue for those communities either like i said given the topography but it is something to think about that we're not not everybody in eastern massachusetts is on mwa water it's a good point show really good point and i think that's what jill was saying just maybe i'll try to bridge mike's comment and jill's comment i think the reason why we sometimes do bring up drinking water is it is the even though it's not relevant in this case is because it is the most quantifiable thing the federal government and the state government has done sort of say danger levels whereas in other p fast contamination issues it's a little vaguer is so you know was this what you were getting at show maybe it maybe i'm not but like yeah it's not as clear that if you like bathe in p fast what that's doing to you you know i mean what i usually read is like taking a shower if there's p fast in the water in your shower like that's not necessarily good but it's not necessarily going to affect you or at least we don't know how much it affects you whereas with drinking water you drink a glass of water that's above the standards put out there we we've been told that that's bad so i don't know i don't want to beat a dead horse but that's am i kind of where you were on this show okay yeah and i think joe brings up a good point is that if we're going to end up with site specific conversations there are i would imagine that you know fresh pond being the backup reservoir we would have to look at something like thorn dyke and is there any yeah is there any contamination whereas other places i think are probably much farther away um so we certainly don't want to dismiss our neighboring communities yeah for sure okay thank you health you're busy and when marvin comes back he's going to be back with a full head of steam i have a feeling so um i don't want to break the flow but you imagine guest speakers you know we had sort of said the sixth of the thirteenth would be potential times for guest speakers that doesn't mean some other date if someone's really available on some other date or future tuesday we couldn't find a way to fit them in um and it seems like right now even though we're talking to a bunch of people i don't know how realistic next tuesday is so i mean maybe the thirteenth is more realistic at this point you know giving people at least two weeks notice um and we can talk about scheduling in our next meeting at the end of this one but um i guess i'll move to the safety update now um so um so i think you know our group met uh today we usually meet meet uh on tuesday tuesday at noon and joe uh lesley and i had a good conversation sort of talking through one of things joe's been taking a deep dive on and it's sort of related to our work and sort of important our work not necessarily in our charge but if something joe had wanted to kind of take a deep dive on was you know the maintenance and cost issues you know what's the cost of installation what's the cost of maintenance and what's the comparison between the two and although it's not directly part of our charge it it's relevant to our charge and i'm glad joe's kind of doing the deep dive and i had shared with him the 2016 tory analysis i granted it's 2016 it's you know oh nearly eight years old now and um but joe sort of used that as a guide and then compared it to some of the numbers from recent installations or cost estimates we've gone so joe's keeping very busy with some of some of this stuff and um and uh it's very helpful i think as he's looking at that but lesley what else are we kind of i don't want to do all that talk what else have we been talking about when i let you do a say a few words or more than a few words yeah uh well just looking at you know the the organic maintenance as well and what the costs are relative to that um because even though it's kind of apples to oranges you know we're we're not doing the organic turf maintenance now even if we were to go to organic turf maintenance i mean we can see what those costs are and what the um impacts of those are but that's really a natural turf to natural turf comparison that's really comparing what we do today with our fields uh to what we could potentially do um to natural turf fields but it really doesn't impact usage you know even if you move to an organic turf management plan you still can't get on the fields if it's been we can't get on our natural grass fields if it's been raining and in the early spring with the with the amount of snow that we have so you know we can look at what those costs are and what the what it would take to to get to that but it's kind of irrelevant to what it would take to do artificial turf maintenance that kind of stands alone and we've been talking about trying to find somebody we have a few good leads um of someone who has worked in both uh grass turf um installation and maintenance as well as artificial turf installation maintenance someone who's done both is knowledgeable about both um and can also speak to the pros and the cons of both and can speak to how you know they've worked with various communities on um you know doing kind of better maintenance of grass fields while also you know uh you know what the drawbacks or benefits of that are versus installation of artificial and maintenance of artificial turf and we actually have a few candidates we've identified through some some media and public sources that we're going to try to see if we can maybe get you know one of these folks to come and speak to as someone who you know presumably doesn't come to this with bias is they work with both um and have helped communities with both but may be able to be a good resource to us in sort of an unbiased ways explaining why some communities go one way and some communities go the other and the costs and and you know can also speak to you know injury what they see in terms of injuries with either you know or both um so we've actually have I don't want to say their names yet because you know we may not be able to get them but we've identified at least one and maybe potentially two or three people who might fit the fit the bill there and I think would be good and not just to address the safety part but also could address some issues that the other uh working groups might might have so yeah there's so my point yeah yeah well I when I spoke to Dan Martin at MIT I mean they have both turf and grass and he said they spend about eight or ten thousand dollars a year on maintenance for turf and about 150 000 a year on maintenance for grass now they have about two to three times as much probably grass as they do turf but I mean I'm happy to reach back out to him and sort of solidify those numbers if that's helpful but I mean they they obviously have both and and maintain both so that's you know that's a sort of real life example of what they what they tend to spend which is probably more than we would be able to spend yeah it's more but I mean as a person and I mean Joe's I think Joe's data is not necessarily inconsistent with that I mean the numbers may be different but that there's yes that it probably is consistent with what Joe the numbers he's gathering from various sources including you know our own numbers for what we're spending today here you know again we have the experience of having both types of fields yeah I think Joe's the information from MIT could be very helpful in terms of just comparing what they've shown what they've been doing I think that'd be helpful for us in terms of cost you know and I'll remind folks who are listening you know we know the costs are not they're not the main event here right but it's still I think town meeting when we make a final report would still appreciate you know an analysis of part of the equation it's part of the equation you know for some people it may be a lesser part of the equation for some people it may be a greater part so we think we should include it and to the extent Joe and other either of our Joes have been able to put some time into this I think it's worth including provided you know we get we get it right and I think we will with the two Joes working on it so um Leslie I have a question for you if we were to move towards organically maintained turf fields that are not mud pits like some of the fields we have now would a component of that be less hours of play to make that work like do they have to be used for only a certain amount of time a day I think that's a question we need an expert to answer you know I mean I think we could we could shake the bushes ourselves but yeah I mean based on our based on the experience I mean actual turf is whether it's wet or you can put the little kids like going back to the conversation that we had a while ago um about you know ages little kids going out on a grass field aren't going to cause the type of wear that you're going to get from the older athletes and kids at the high school level or you know that are more serious and any field any grass field is going to be damaged if it gets enough use when it's vulnerable when it's wet um which is not the case with I mean that's why you know we we talk a lot about when in the spring teams can actually go out onto the fields and it's so dependent on the New England weather and what type of um weather we have so seasonally the actual sports teams season starts in mid-march but we can't let our athletes out onto the field generally in mid-march because they're too vulnerable um whether the whether the field is maintained as it is today or it's maintained organically it's still grass and there's it's still uh subject to damage if it's used when wet it doesn't artificial turf doesn't have the same limitations that grass fields have I mean that's that's just the nature of the field yeah and MIT said that it's more about that like how much do you say they can get in the spring and in the late fall versus like necessarily I think Joe Conley said this last week as well sort of more use yes like day to day it's more about starting earlier and maybe going a little bit later and you can also I guess if you do it right you can plow you can plow a turf field in a way that you can't with a natural turf field although again if you don't do it right you can just rip the field up you can rip the field up but I have seen I have seen um fields in use in New Hampshire in February March with snow mounds piled up on either side um you can get snow off of an artificial turf field without damaging the field um and it's playable and they're not damaged as long as you've as you say plow it right that is the issue around here are those shoulder seasons you know the the march and into september to november when you're trying to be outside and and on the fields but the grass fields are very fragile especially in the spring they're fragile and doing damage at that time can cause years of um trying to trying to fix them and and I think anyone's you know anyone that's gone to our fields can see the wear at the goal mouths or if you're if you've gone and looked at lacrosse games the the face off circles you can see where the wear happens and that's just as a result of natural play and and natural patterns and we've tried to rotate fields so that those wear patterns happen differently um you know but we don't always have the capacity to do that because our we don't have you know 100 100 not 100 percent of our rectangular fields cannot be rotated into a different configuration we're very we're limited we're limited um in in our space and the way that our fields are configured or can be configured I mean when we look at poet's corner and and the way it's crowned and and and the sloping sides you have to consider that you can't just do any type of um field game there because it's going to end up going on to the access road you know balls are going to go on to the access roads so you know our fields are are not you know if you were going to pick the locations for fields some of our locations are not where you would necessarily pick there are results of our fields having been landfills that we turned into parks and and fields um yeah so that's just the condition of where we're at and I think that that was one of the reasons that I thought maldon was an intriguing example because it's very you know they have a very similar demographic and a similar problem and what they were you know trying to what they are doing with one of their fields um went through a lot of the decision making that that we're looking at now Leslie can I just ask that quick question that maldon case are they taking a an existing artificial turf field and making it it's so it's a grass that they're converting or just a space a space okay perfect thank you yeah I think it was a park playing field but it was it was grass and there were some contamination issues yep and they're going to artificial turf yes yes well on one field at least one yeah on this one field they're in the process of which used to be a process of you know very similar process decision making process there's a study on that um we can go on and on I think Leslie and I um we have like we have we have very good meetings um but I think we'll turn it over and environmental thank you um yeah so the environmental group has made some progress I'm glad to report that we are at this point narrowing our bullet points and areas that we are going to focus on to I think four maybe five particular topics that are of concern to to the environment my environmental issues and I'll point out that they I could relay them to you at this point but I think it's more important for me to say that we also are looking at several speakers and I did want to address the speaker issue yeah that um one question is are we going to have one speaker from each subgroup or more are we going to have a question and answer session primarily with a very brief introduction from the speaker or what's the format of that going to be and how much time are we going to take so those are a couple of questions about speakers I guess I'd say you get the speaker we'll figure it out uh you know I mean some of my speakers want to know things ahead of time and I get that but I guess you know we can be very flexible you know I mean I envision that they would do a short presentation um followed by Q&A from from the group but their presentation could also be in the in the scheme of like Mike maybe you you know having a little bit of a back and forth with them to get some information out and then opening up to a larger group I well my my thinking or what we talked about is that um in particular for university people that we've been in touch with professors and so forth it's it's a hard time in the semester for them to prepare anything and given the experience we had in the town meeting where people felt frustrated that they couldn't get a full answer to some of their questions uh we thought it might make sense for us to do like a three to five minute introduction to who this person is and what their expertise is and then just let the committee ask specific questions about that area of expertise and I don't know if we're going to take half an hour for Q&A or whatever it may be but you know that might be an easier way to get informed experts into into the process I don't know if Joe or Claire any other issues or comments they want to make on that so go right ahead nothing on the speakers I think um you know we you and I had talked Mike about um how how it's been a little bit difficult to find um you know um speakers and letting them know what the specifics are I like I really do like Joe's idea of maybe bringing in the MIT the gentleman they spoke with at MIT potentially about field maintenance and you know how they how they manage it how they manage it over there I think um you know we did we did have an opportunity to talk about speakers and and how we how we might want to bring one in um we also had an opportunity to talk a little bit about bullet points about some stuff that we want to do include in the reports and I think you know where I can be useful here is to look at some of our our um uh plans our existing plans or hazard mitigation hazard mitigation plan or private action plan things like that um and how they relate back to you know this environmental group and you know sort of what at least in the formation of those plans the community was really um focused on you know things like heat island effects things like um impermeable surface and I don't know you know very recently what one of the things I heard and Mike and I spoke about this a little bit on the phone was that um there we're we're starting to see um uh at least one government organization is calling you know artificial turf fields now impermeable surface which has a full slew of storm water impact um runoff impact um and how that will be classified in the you know in the future moving forward um I think you know we were also talked a little bit about um you know uh the the climate work at this office and other uh areas other groups in town have done um looking at carbon sequestration in green fields um you know we have been given the limited limited space the limited open space we have in Arlington um one impact may be of you know potentially replacing um one of those green fields with with an artificial surface um and also again the runoff considerations you know um kids don't always play just on fields all the time they also play in the Millbrook they play um in all many other green spaces in town that could be impacted you know by by runoff by you know um some of these other issues um that we've been talking about but so I think you know um where I'm going to turn my focus is um you know and into the as I can be useful into our published plans and to you know some of the um goals that that have come out of those um and and um looking at how we might rectify or reconcile excuse me um you know um the the turf conversation with the with the organic field conversation there are issues with organic fields too I mean oval fertilization we have over uh you know over nutrient I guess and some of our um and some of our water bodies which have led to algal blooms and you know it's all very very complex you know and and I think there's a lot of a lot of things to talk about on on either side but this is really the direction that we're going in looking um I think mostly at runoff of the infill runoff of PFAS and other chemicals um how this relates back to you know some of our published plans and then of course you know in the broader um context of just climate in general so yeah and I would just add I'd just add that in terms of um the various topics I think that the runoff is an issue primarily for our water bodies and wetlands that are you know protected under the State Wetland Protection Act as well as our own bylaw in Arlington so that's one area obviously that we're going to be looking at and the other issue is um the one of infill and there is runoff and migration of the infill and what's the impact of that you know then the whole issue of climate change and we've got uh PFAS that are not only in water but in the blades of grass themselves in other areas and what's the impact of that on players but that's that's a health and safety issue rather than an environmental issue but it does have environmental uh a fact given the the if there are water bodies or wetlands nearby so those are some some of the concerns and then of course it's the recycling issue as far as I've concerned there is zero recycling going on of artificial turf in this country and these rolled up uh rolls of turf just sort of sit there and that can't be good for anybody yeah I mean you know these issues it's funny on that one you know you on a lot of these things it's sort of you get differing opinions but on that point Mike there seems to be no no debate that they've not yet found I mean I know there's some chatter that there's some some path to recycling but I mean realistically I don't think any of these things can be recycled and I haven't seen anything to tell me otherwise right and that's uh you know part of the problem is the various chemicals and part of it is the infills that leak out and all of that so there's there's a lot of issues and what as I mentioned we're going to try to nail down just four or five specific topics in the environmental group can look at as part of our report and when we finalize those I'd be glad to circulate them to this committee for their you know for any input so that you know it there's you can you can go on for years looking at this stuff and there's always new stuff coming out as I mentioned before one of the things that we don't see is any impact studies on the newer stuff whether it's you know wood or cork rock fell yeah rock fell or any of those things there's not there's just not a lot of detail that I found telling us anything about that yeah I guess one question which I suppose is better than although negative material on a crumb rubber which you know doesn't seem to have very very positive things going for it yeah I mean I think that you know some of that is if there's not an issue there's not a study in some cases because there's nothing to study because there is no there is no negativity around it it seems like most of the studying is is the push for you know what harm are we doing and when it comes to how are we doing things well well you're not going to bother to study something that you're that you if you've solved the problem yeah the problem is that you don't know if there's a problem until you study it right I will say I did see it I don't want to engage with the chat but I will simply say this I saw a comment in the chat that said that the carpet can be recycled I would love to see if you have something that says that I would love to see it I love to see reports on that that'd be really good yeah I'm not questioning it it's more I haven't seen anything to that effect so if someone has evidence that the carpet part can be recycled I'm all ears and eyes I guess one question just in general for speakers a couple of recommendations I've gotten has been for uh sort of landscape architecture consultants who do field design um and they probably know a lot and probably get a lot of the same questions from communities that we're trying to answer but I just wanted to make sure that or see if there was any concerns about having sort of those types of consultants be one of our speaking one of our speakers I think if they can speak to both you know the natural the the grass turf and the artificial I don't see a problem with that I don't know if others do okay just wanted to double check I am cognizant of the fact that I think Joe you have to leave it six uh yeah I do okay so there's one other comment or just one I think it mentions they did meet with um someone from mass municipal association who had a recommendation for someone from western and samson I think has done work for the town in the past um as a you know who I think to Natasha's point has sort of worked on a variety of fields so is it like uh oh yeah one or the other but more like just a proponent of you know getting themselves more work but anyway um but they'll do whatever you want um and then also she did mention the person from I'm forgetting my name um Josie um mentioned that there is a they think that both the state and the federal government may be issuing new well the federal government I think we knew was was looking at issuing regulations really at the PFAS which could impact that but there's also talk of state legislation that potentially would you know regulate this more which you know not not artificial turf specifically but it could result in impacts on the ability to use artificial turf so she just wanted to make sure we were aware of that and she was going to let me know if there was any further developments in that I had a question for the environmental group and I don't know if you've come across anything but if we're if if you're converting a a field playing surface itself to turf are you able to include more trees um and foliage nearby as sort of like a like a trade-off because you know you're not requiring sunlight and you're not requiring as much water um so so is there the possibility that the overall landscape can be positive in a way and and have you come across anything I haven't seen anything about that but it's it's an interesting idea but I don't know how much uh encroachment you want to have from roots uh into the or the area near the artificial turf um but it's an interesting idea for sure I haven't heard about it yeah I mean I probably would that could be a question that someone like a landscape landscape architect would help us think through or answer it's good design it would be good design to do it that way for sure um I'm just going to keep things moving I think it's been a really good discussion uh to unfortunately I have so many screens open on my laptop I missed I think our next point is Natasha what is our next item is about format template sorry I'm I'm recording structure and template yes thank you so so I know um I sort of promised something by this meeting and I know Mike had sent um an idea to me that the environmental group was kicking around I guess I'm going to be a little more laissez-faire on this one and start off by saying I care a little less about the format more about the content having said that you know if there's a format that works for a particular sub you know subgroup working group to put out their information on I'm I'm at this at this stage at least very willing to kind of go with it having said that you know to the extent we're looking for some kind of rough structure for each of these sections I would say you know something like brief introduction you know this is these are the issues we're looking at but this is the you know with us is you know this is you know the issues that the environmental subgroup looked at or the health group looked at or the safety group looked at um and then you know maybe break it down so if you say you're going home you know I'm just throwing this out here but safety group you know we said you know injuries um you know heat Joe said to something good and I can't remember it but he had like injuries then he broke down certain injuries uh heat issues he broke that down and then the last was sort of playing surface um on athlete you know the difference between turf and art of artificial turf in terms of the actual playing surface and the effect on the athletes that may not be exactly how we're doing it but you know let's go with that for now and then you'd have you know your first heading would be after some introductory words about this is what we looked into we feel these are the major issues within this topic area you know issue one um sports injuries you know issue two uh you know and then lay it all out there and as part of laying it out there discuss the issue discuss the sources you look to I mean you can explicitly discuss the sources or you can simply discuss and footnote the sources I'll leave that up to however you want to get the information out there and then sort of walk I think walk the reader methodically through each of the areas you looked at and each of the sort of was you know uh you know findings you you developed from what you looked at and then at the end at the end well before you get to sort of your subgroups findings recommendations I would advise that the group should also and you can have a separate heading for this or you can incorporate it folding it into each of the discussions but some discussion about mitigation so if you recognize that there is a inherent problem with artificial turf on that particular you know so for example I think I'm not giving away much by saying you know we have recognized that there is a heat issue on the player you know on the user on artificial turf I think we would definitely though be derelict if we didn't get into that we believe that the many of those issues could be mitigated through you know limiting the hours of use during certain summer days summer weeks the hours of use certain you know protocols for people who do use the field you know things like that and you could either lump all of your mitigation into one heading subheading within your area or you can just effortlessly fold into each discussion whatever whatever works best for you and I think that's kind of roughly the format you were suggesting Mike maybe maybe I'm maybe I'm maybe I'm off but I kind of I think you that's true and I think that one area that I think we all have is here's what we don't know or what we didn't study or what we couldn't find about that needs further investigation yeah I mean we we are not going to answer every question about artificial turf or regular turf so if there's an area where it's like well we could only get so you know we could only and I think obvious among the edits we would have liked more studies about you know different non-crumb rubber infills you know I would have liked more studies about you know Brockville or coconut husks or whatever you know and their effects on you know heat or this or that you know we have some industry data on that I mean that's helpful but it's still industry data so you know if there's an area where you just came up short because we couldn't find you know then then I think Mike's right just put it out there and saying you know we got as far as we could on on this subject or that and this was where we you know there's a gap yeah I think that's important for people to realize when they're reading our report that there's a lot more out there than we had time or ability to actually deal with and I think they will appreciate that yeah yes so you know the bullet I mean so this may matter not as much doing bullets which I think what you were saying would be due by a week from Friday I mean the bullets you can sort of have and match the rough you know sort of almost being an outline format but I don't really want an outline I want some substance behind I mean the idea of the bullets is you're going to start to show some substance behind but you know one sentence can do you know something that may be a full paragraph later on can be one sentence now you know roughly you know sort of a thesis sentence for each of you know each of the kind of points you're going to be making I'm guessing that's what folks are doing I mean in some ways I think some groups maybe the health group already would like to jump into the narrative part and I feel bad but maybe the bullet points is us you know holding you back a little bit but I do feel like it's helpful just to give the larger committee a sense of just where you're going with this and if we you know people are concerned for any reason about where the bullets are maybe it's a better point to have that discussion now than before you've written a whole section and we tell you okay that's not where we wanted you to go with this so um so are people generally sort of I mean I'm I'm trying not to be too prescriptive here about how how you do this uh I mean it'd be nice if we had you know things sort of flowing in a general kind of format like that but I just don't want to be like well you know you have to have you know the Harvard outline here and it's going to have you know a b roman numeral one roman numeral you know like ultimately there's going to be a lot of a lot of formatting work done by Natasha and myself you know at the end of this project so right now it's the ideas are the most important thing so a week from this coming Friday a week from the second I guess it is um yeah so is that something you want us to send to you and Natasha or just to the whole committee so you start with an attempt yeah go ahead I was just gonna say um Friday for the deadline that's perfectly fine but it would have to be first thing in the morning because I have to get this packet out and I have to get it posted by 12 noon because it's it's beyond me and the people who post it really only work until 12 noon but we have to have it posted by 5 p.m. on Friday to be in compliance with open meeting law so it does put us in a little bit of a a bind so if we could get it by Friday morning um and then that way it can be incorporated into if you can get it to meet earlier than that that would be great because I try to have everything all teed up but I do have to have it over um I would say what these bullet points for our next meetings what you're saying basically no not next week no no no just you know shortly after our next meeting okay because I thought you wanted them you know by this Friday no no next Friday oh okay yeah yeah don't no no I don't think I can get mine done quickly I was just asked um so that leads to a I think we've discussed you know subject matter experts which I think the next time on the agenda I think we've already sort of discussed that in terms of scheduling I guess maybe I'll fold this in a new business there's there's an option we have one option is to not have a meeting next Tuesday because it's sort of crunch time for our first deliverable and just if if working groups want to meet during that slot we know that they have it open they can or just people can plow away and working you know individually on whatever tasks they're doing related to the bullet points we can meet uh next Tuesday as well especially if you know I I would most disinclined to cancel meeting if we have a guest speaker who was like yes that's the date I can do it and that's the only date I can do it then we would I would say we should have the meeting but given that people are still working on nailing things down and probably it may not come together by next Tuesday again I'll open up to the group but Natasha and I were thinking it might just be a better use of our time to really get into the work part and then really have a full full meeting the following Tuesday where we unpack the first deliverable so you know we're not talking about we're talking about potentially for discussion canceling next Tuesday's meeting and then having the deliverable that Friday and then having a really really you know potentially long meeting the following Tuesday or just meeting both Tuesdays and still still sticking with the original plan uh-huh I think Joe had to jump off but I think he's I think he's on he might be on his cell phone just kind of listening in so I guess I'm listening on my phone so yeah sorry Joe um just wanted to acknowledge that so I think we just need to make a decision at this point do we want to meet next week or do we want to leave this as an opportunity for the subgroups to meet and sort of finalize our next big thing is is sort of deadline so I'm not sure you know do we have more that we want to discuss as a group here or is the next discussion point really talking about what what we've outlined in our in our sections I would feel I'll just speak for myself I would feel fine if we did not meet as a larger group next week and that we focused on our reporting but I will do whatever I'm available more to the extent of people are really angry for a meeting have a say one of their working group meetings event right well I think it's like that would be doing a doing a working group meeting instead by a few more the most effective use of our time yeah and I think that once those outlines or bullet points or whatever you call them or have been submitted then we're going to have a I would assume a full meeting to discuss each of them yeah and then I mean just so everyone knows with the tight time I was only two weeks from one deliverable to the next so um you know I guess the tension is that if we have a bunch of guest speakers on the 13th we're probably not having a real opportunity to discuss our work on that date which is fine we can add an I mean if we have to we can add another meeting date in there somewhere it's just I don't I'm hesitant to like I mean we all want guest speakers and we'd like to have them but I'm hesitant to sort of block off meetings if some some reason they don't come and then that time could have been better used on the actual work so Jim do you think that maybe we should leave the the opportunity on the table and make a decision a little bit later on in the week if anyone has any guest speakers that they want to bring for next week we can certainly that's a great idea why don't we say if you've nailed down a speaker and the date that they can really do it is next Tuesday let us know by Thursday evening and we'll keep the date open we'll have the meeting but if we're not seeing any speakers nailed down by next to you know for next Tuesday by Thursday night then our default will be that we will take down the meeting and working groups will use that time or any time early next week to really get the first deliverable ready right okay sounds like a plan any other any other new business and I do want to thank Susan Stamps for posting the charge in the chat I think we we all know it very well but it's always good to get another reminder of what our charge is I think we've been really trying to hit all those points in our work but as you actually start to put pen to paper it's uh it's good to just keep it in mind and as always as always if there's additional uh you know concerns or or things that you'd like the group to consider please feel free to send an email to boh at town dot arlington and we can get those incorporated into our our meeting uh packets and thanks to another well yeah yeah there's nothing else I'll entertain a motion your second Leslie made the motion Mike are you seconding perfect um well then Natasha we'll do we'll do the quick roll then okay Mike yep okay uh Leslie yep uh Joe bar you're here yep okay uh Jill yep okay Natasha yes Marvin is absent Jim yes all right thanks everyone I know a lot of work is happening here and behind the scenes right now as you're doing pulling together these bullets and I just want to thank you all but we're it's a lot of work in a short time but this group's really stepping up so thank you thank you have a good night good night everyone