Glen Ellyn Park District presses ahead with turf project
Glen Ellyn Park District will pursue plans to install artificial turf on a Newton Park field after a DuPage County judge denied a bid from neighbors to suspend construction.
A status hearing on the lawsuit, however, is scheduled for Sept. 28 — long after the turf will be in place and youth and high school teams will have used it.
“There's no realistic possibility that a judge is going to say 'rip it up,'” said Derke Price, an attorney for the park district. “It is safe.”
When asked Tuesday if she plans to continue to fight the project in court, neighbor Nancy Perlman said “I don't know” and directed other inquiries to her attorney.
In a 104-page suit filed June 1, the plaintiff is listed as Protect Glen Ellyn Parks, Inc., a nonprofit group Perlman said represents turf opponents.
In the suit, Perlman claims the synthetic product — specifically, the rubber infill — poses environmental and health hazards. The suit also argues the materials will migrate into her yard, making the soil “unfit to use as an organic garden and support an organic lawn.”
“And it will render the air around her property unwholesome and unfit to breathe, especially during the installation of the artificial turf field and the weeks immediately afterward,” the complaint states.
In rejecting the petition to temporarily put the brakes on the installation, the judge ruled June 15 that the claims were “speculative,” Price said.
Perlman said in an email at the time that “it wasn't the ruling we hoped for, but we respect the judge's decision.”
“Based on the evidence we could gather in the time permitted, the judge wasn't satisfied the evidence warranted stopping the construction,” Perlman wrote.
The site has been a construction zone since spring. The park district hasn't set a date to install the turf because the work now — focused on infrastructure — requires dry conditions.
But Executive Director Dave Harris still anticipates the project will be complete by late July, or before the Golden Eagles Jamboree, a season kickoff for the youth football team.
Park leaders maintain chances are slim the infill will travel off-site, and even it did, isn't harmful. They also have changed to a pricier product that isn't porous and tends to stay stagnant, Harris said.
While the roughly $980,000 project has been years in the making, Perlman and other neighbors have criticized the district for a lack of communication. Harris said the district held about a dozen public meetings on bringing turf to a former grassy field susceptible to damage.
“We felt that was adequate, but obviously some people did not feel that way, so maybe next time we could do some things better,” Harris said last week. “But at the end of the day, we still did our due diligence on communicating and on researching the product and the best solution for the overall good of the park district.”
The turf will allow teams to use the field more often and reduce maintenance costs. The park district spent about $25,000 a year to keep the grass field playable for only a month of use, Harris said.
“It doesn't take much. It takes about one football game when the field is wet to pretty much tear it up,” park Commissioner Gary Mayo said.
With the turf, the district expects to get an estimated 200 days of use; most of the project's costs will be offset by user fees.
Glenbard High School District 87 pays $54,000 to use Newton and other park sites. The turf field could be used by Glenbard West's lower level football, girls lacrosse and girls soccer teams. Field hockey and boys lacrosse also could play there.