EDMONDS, Wash. — Families against a controversial artificial turf field in Edmonds say it may be illegal and want to know if state money can be used for the crumb rubber field.
Quick Facts:
- Crumb rubber is material from recycled tires
- Edmonds School Board wants to replace grass field with crumb rubber
- Some say it causes cancer but studies haven't supported claims
- Everett field part of new round of testing
- School board meeting tonight
The fight over Woodway Field has been going on for months. Currently, the field is natural grass and in May, Edmonds School Board members voted to replace it with what's called crumb rubber, which is material from recycled tires.
The issue is that though studies have never substantiated it, some say chemicals in the crumb rubber cause cancer, and dozens of students and parents protested the project, asking the board to consider something safer.
But despite a University of Washington soccer coach testifying before the board saying she personally knows 50 players with cancer that could be linked to the material, they voted four to one to install it.
The board says all four district high schools use crumb rubber and that they hired an industrial hygienist to ensure it's safe.
“The board has confidence in this process and the research conducted in the past months,” Edmonds School Board member Diana White said last spring.
Parents continuing the fight against the material have recruited the help of a state senator who spoke against crumb rubber at the time.
They want her to ask the state attorney general if using state money for a project that could harm children is legal.
The group of parents opposing the field will be at a school board meeting Tuesday night and they may have a new weapon in the fight, depending on some study results that are a few months away.
A field in Everett is part of a new round of testing that includes about a half-dozen other fields nationwide to definitively determine if crumb rubber is safe.
The Edmonds School District's four other fields are all crumb rubber and all were approved without any pushback.