The school that has long branded itself “the environmental university” has been quietly replacing living lawns with plastic grass, a move one campus biologist calls as bad as it gets for nature.
The swap turns a natural community of plants, insects, birds and frogs into a “graveyard,” says James Douglass, a professor in the Department of Marine and Earth Sciences..
University officials did not immediately respond to questions about the change.
Faculty members weren’t told it was coming, Douglass says. “The university is full of biologists, environmental scientists, and students who are aghast at this, but the decisions are happening over our heads with zero faculty input,” he wrote in an email.
Colleague Nora Demers, an associate professor of biology, points out that “Once the turf is installed, the decision becomes, for all practical purposes, irreversible (and) meaningful discussion is replaced by acceptance of a completed project. “
Demers says she’s not asking that the project be abandoned, just postponed until the FGCU community has had a chance to “review the proposal, understand the materials being installed, and consider the environmental, health, maintenance, financial, and educational implications of replacing living landscapes with synthetic turf across one of the University’s most visible public spaces.”
So far, the grass is gone at the student center, Douglass says, and it appears the popular quad is next.
Costs might be one reason the university is making the switch, says turf-seller Paul Gagli, with Fort Myers’ Purchase Green
Over the years, the savings can be huge, he says, as the need for mowing, feeding, weeding and watering are eliminated. An average 5,000-square-foot lawn costs between $1,200 and $6,000 a year to maintain, not counting an annual irrigation bill of between $800 to $1,000.
“With the drought going on in Florida, this always stays green,” Gaglia says. “And it keeps its color – guaranteed.”
There are larger issues, Douglass says, including other living things on campus.
“One of the most negative impacts is the lack of a food chain anywhere,” he says. “You replace plants with plastic and you’re going from a chain that supports tiny insects, tiny snails, little birds that might hop across the lawn looking for worms, to a system that supports no life whatsoever.”
A ballfield is one thing, but “on our campus, we try to have harmony between human needs and the needs of plants and wildlife,” he says, “and historically we’ve integrated them pretty well. So this kind of thing which just utterly replaces all living things with this non-living plastic material is as bad as it gets … It’s just a graveyard.”
In an email to campus administrators including Facilities Director Rick Mercer, Demers wrote that in recent years “a substantial body of research has emerged regarding artificial turf, including concerns about PFAS (“forever chemicals”), microplastic release, stormwater contamination, extreme surface temperatures, long-term maintenance costs, and disposal at the end of the field’s useful life.”
Bottom line, says Douglass: “One of the (university’s) foundational pillars is to champion sustainability and resiliency, and it’s great to say that, but we have to walk the walk.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Exclusive: FGCU, the environmental university, rolls out plastic grass
Reporting by Amy Bennett Williams, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Amy Bennett Williams, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News | USA TODAY Network
