Over the past few weeks I’ve received dozens of letters imploring me to proceed with the replacement of the tire mulch. One of those letters came directly to my personal email inbox from a person I’ve previously identified as “M.”
Before I head to that MSBA conference this afternoon I plan on writing M a response and copying it too all the other parents concerned about mulch. I’ve got three hours to do this before I get on the road. Stay tuned for my reply:
Harry,
Can you tell me the status of replacing the recycled tires in the school playgrounds? It is my understanding that , despite a LOT of opposition from parents, it was decided to replace the recycled tires with…recycled tires? I heard a rumor that it was subsequently decided by someone (The chair and superintendent?) to replace it only at Stowe school as a test? Is this going to be a one year test? Five years? Ten? What are the criteria of this test? Are the lab work and other scientific tests that are necessary to make an informed decision going to be done by an objective third party? Who will pay for these tests? There are, of course, many other questions related to this that I and others would like answered.
Why has the district decided to replace a dangerous product with a product containing the same problems. There is a lot that is not known about recycled tire mulch. It seems premature to make a decision until the governments research is complete. This is what they know so far:
https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/federal-research-recycled-tire-crumb-used-playing-fields
My Reply:
M,
I’ll confess I didn’t look too closely at the enclosure you sent me. As I’ve explained to many parents I am an agnostic about the dangers of recycled tire mulch. As I’ve also explained my vote to replace it is intended to demonstrate that I’m sensitive to their fears and want to show that our District will act rather than stonewall parents. This is not an absolute guarantee that I won’t change my mind. That depends on whether the replacement cost we were talking about remains constant. That figure originally seemed to be no more than, and possibly less than, half a million dollars. Since then we’ve been given a new price but it is tied to a different material than we originally considered. Originally, we were looking at engineered wood mulch. Now the recommended surface seems to be a “poured in place” rubber compound with a flat surface. As you say it has similar ingredients but it would not be composed of zillions of shredded pieces of old tire that increase the surface area and greatly speed up the diffusion of tire dust into the atmosphere (and into our children’s lungs).
In the short term this would be far more expensive – possibly several millions. Its most attractive feature is that it needs very little maintenance after installation but I’m having a hard time with that initial high cost. I don’t think we can consider it with so much of our general fund already going to pay off Red Plan bonding costs.
At our Monday Business meeting I suggested that instead of taking a hit in one year we introduce the replacement over several years (at a couple hundred grand a year) Our administration was going to check to see if this met statutory requirements concerning multi-year construction contracts.
To finance this expense, we can only draw on the portion of our budget dedicated to capital (building) costs. A small portion of this money comes from the Long-Range Building Plan which is as yet unspent. However, this portion can only be spent under state law on projects that are considered to be ready for replacement. Since most of our new school playgrounds are new they don’t qualify for these funds. Only the Stowe school playground qualifies. Because of the expense, I would prefer wood mulch for Stowe now rather than the poured surface.
I think we owe it to families to offer a uniform playground surface. Congdon families sought and got a wood chip surface for their playground. They are the only school to have this. That is a point of friction I’d like to get rid of.
Harry
