It’s interesting, sometimes, the things you find when you’re looking for something else… the part to the broken item you finally threw away a month before, the twenty in the pocket of a jacket you haven’t worn for a year, or dozens of tiny paper cutouts of penguins with hockey sticks drawn by children when they were young, and stashed at the back of the pencil drawer.

What I recently found, while looking for an Assembly Bill regarding cooperative purchasing, was Senate Bill S3783, that would prohibit municipalities, school districts, and State departments and agencies from purchasing, installing, or using artificial turf. The bill was introduced by Raj Mukherji in October 2024 and was referred to the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

In the body of the bill was a long list of potential hazards associated with turf fields.[1] Much of this has been covered in other articles but, surprisingly, this piece of legislative writing contains the most concise and easily-absorbed information I’ve seen in a single place. It is well worth a look.

After finding this bill, I began to peruse New Jersey news sources to see if any response to this bill had gotten coverage and I found another gem: an article from Beyond Plastics about neighboring towns Westfield and Scotch Plains and their plans for synthetic turf fields. Both towns had put turf installation forward as a referendum. Both towns’ residents voted it down.

In the case of Westfield, the synthetic turf would have covered six acres with a bond measure of $11.8 million. Scotch Plains was proposing an installation at Brookside Park, with a bond amount of $3.8 million. Opponents of the Brookside Park field cited cost, environmental concerns and changes to the character of the park as reasons for voting against the project.

While cost is a factor for Berkeley Heights, the environmental concerns raised in Senate Bill S3783 are a pressing issue, given the field’s location next to wetlands and a tributary to the Passaic River, and studies on the health impacts of synthetic turf. The Recreation Department and Township have stated in one document[2] that the turf field will need to be sanitized twice a year, and will need to be replaced within 10-15 years. (More realistic estimates of turf replacement give eight years as an average.) Both processes are incredibly harmful to the environment.

While the Senate Bill is unlikely to see passage in the near future, it would be a great idea for Berkeley Heights to explore other options. According to Union County, our town is the home of the first-in-NJ recyclable turf baseball field.[3] Will the town consider a similar installation for Lower Columbia? Is natural grass still an option? Residents can attend a Special Meeting this Monday, June 2nd, to see a presentation on turf products. The meeting will be held at 6:30 pm in the Municipal Building. We urge residents to become involved and informed on this topic prior to the vote on our own referendum.

1 Bill S3783

2 Recreation Department Berkeley Heights Presentation on Lower Columbia

3 Union County Press Release on Snyder

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