Around 20 advocates from Zero Waste Ithaca and partner organizations gathered outside the City of Ithaca’s Planning Board meeting on Tuesday to protest Cornell’s plan to build a new athletic facility with two artificial turf fields. Meanwhile, over 50 Cornell athletes, coaches and administrators attended to show support for the project.
If passed, the Meinig Fieldhouse project would construct one new indoor field and one new outdoor field on the lot between Weill Hall and Charles F. Berman Field. At Tuesday’s meeting, the board voted against requesting an additional environmental impact statement.
However, after previous protests, the project managers changed the original plan of using recycled crumb rubber infill, which significantly contributes to the concentration of PFAS in artificial turf, to using a plant-based infill for the outdoor field.
Critics of the project expressed concern over the impact of plastic pollution on the Ithaca community. The proposed artificial outdoor fields are anticipated to have life cycles of eight to 12 years.
“The number one source of microplastic emission is synthetic turf,” said Yayoi Koizumi, the founder of Zero Waste Ithaca, referencing a University of Toronto study from February.
Koizumi also referenced a 2023 study from the University of Barcelona that found that 15 percent of macro- and mesoplastics collected from nearby waterways were from artificial turf. She described witnessing this pollution herself in the deterioration of a field she used to visit in Vermont.
“Where did it go?” Koizumi asked. “It’s like whole swaths of green gone in 10 years.”
In particular, microplastics contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Current research suggests that PFAS exposure at certain levels may be harmful to human health, including increased risk of some types of cancer and hormone disruption. PFAS can enter the human body in many ways, including in the air or water systems through runoff.
Susan Allen, chair of the Department of the Environment at Ithaca College, began her speech to protesters by asking if anyone had cancer.
“We’re living in a suite of toxins, many of which we do not know enough about,” Allen said.
Many protesters viewed the conflict as reflecting a power imbalance between Cornell and the Ithaca community.
“It’s pretty wicked the way in which y’all have been treating us, because you put money over people, which is absolutely not right,” Common Council Alderperson Phoebe Brown (D-Second Ward) said in her speech.
Brown also criticized the relationship between Cornell and its athletes.
“Watching these young, beautiful people who will be running up and down on plastic that they’re not even informed about breaks my heart,” Brown said. “They don’t know they’re being used.”
However, Cornell athletes see getting a new field as necessary for their safety. As the protesters were getting ready to enter City Hall to comment on the Board meeting, a line of Cornell athletes, coaches and administrators filled the entranceway. The arrival of the athletes gave protesters a new audience for their demands, and tensions rose throughout the meeting.
Caitlin, a women’s lacrosse team member who asked to be referred to by only her first name, described feeling unsafe playing on the current turf in ice and sleet during the winter season.
“We’ve had at least five people on our team tear ACLs on that field,” Caitlin said in an interview with The Sun.
Having heard about the project from Cornell Athletics, Caitlin and her teammates decided to come to the planning board meeting in support of the artificial turf.
Caitlin said she was optimistic that the planning board could address environmental concerns and still move forward on building the fields.
Men’s lacrosse team head coach Connor Buczek ’15, MBA ’17 argued in a public comment that synthetic turf was the only option that would allow his team sufficient practice time throughout winter weather.
However, Anne Rhodes, a community energy educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension, addressed the planning board by arguing that the athletes were selfish in advocating for the project.
“[The athletes’] concerns are only thinking about their own situation and their own convenience,” Rhodes said. “[They are] not thinking about the natural world and the toxic global threat that nanoplastics present.”
Regardless of the future of the project, protesters insisted that the fight against plastic pollution will continue.
“[If] we want to stop the climate crisis, we have to start somewhere, with things like this,” Koizumi said.