Crain and Zhang asked the city to stick to the original bargain, but by then they had been painted as "zealots," Gotbaum said. At the end of the summer of 2007, she proposed a compromise, freezing out the pair in order to get a test done by another party. The Parks Department agreed; the Health Department would oversee the testing.
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In her meetings with the Health and Parks departments and the New York Community Trust, Gotbaum was the only person who objected to the literature review: "I didn't think it would solve our problem."
Months passed with no sign of the literature review. But a lot happened in that time, as the debate progressed about the potential health hazards of artificial turf using recycled tires. The discussion took place against the backdrop of an unprecedented turf boom: More than 850 synthetic fields had been installed nationwide in the previous year alone.
Legislators in California, Connecticut and New York were considering six-month moratoriums on turf purchases while their states paid for research into the rubber infill. Some public health experts backed the breather. "It's a reasonable step while we wait for more and better information," said pediatrician and epidemiologist Dr. Philip Landrigan.
An internationally recognized authority on environmental threats to children, Landrigan chairs the department of preventive medicine at Manhattan's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. A panic set in among youth soccer leagues, which pushed to get new synthetic fields before any possible clampdown. Coaches and many parents complained that their kids couldn't compete against rivals who already had synthetic turf. A fight broke out over the fate of grass playing fields at Battery Park City, where the natural turf had been maintained organically without the use of pesticides or herbicides. The fields were well used, accommodating 775 permits a year, but they were closed in the winter and after rains. Under pressure from soccer leagues, the Battery Park City Authority formed a committee to study the turf issue, and it invited Crain to join. At one meeting, a representative from an Italian artificial-turf manufacturer informed the group that the open health concerns meant he could no longer sell his rubber-infill product in Europe. That's what brought him to America, the salesman explained, where people were still buying. The Battery Park City Authority now plans to install artificial turf, using coconut husks.
