UnBLOGlievable! Fake Turf creates unsafe condition
October 13th, 2008 Posted in Front Page News, UnBLOGlievable!
This is unbelievable! The City should be given notice!
Tuff play destroys Field Turf
Non-permitted sports activity destroys Pel Bay Park’s football field
by Andrew Ulrich
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 6:41 PM EDT
http://yournabe.com/articles/2008/10/10/bronx/doc48ed18642f6e6945615071.txt
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9 Responses to “UnBLOGlievable! Fake Turf creates unsafe condition”
By karen on Oct 13, 2008
turf:
http://www.friendsofbrookpark.org/blog/2008/10/artificial-turf-danger.html#links
Harry
By David Gaines on Oct 14, 2008
Pesticides linked to rare disease among soccer players
THE GUARDIAN, TURIN, ITALY
Thursday, Oct 09, 2008, Page 20
The deaths of a growing number of Italian soccer players from a rare and debilitating disease may be due to pesticides and fertilizers used on soccer pitches in the 1980s and 1990s, an Italian magistrate said.
Fifty-one professional and amateur players have now died from it, six times the average in the general population, said Turin Magistrate Raffaele Guariniello, who has run checks on every man who played in the top three divisions from the 1960s to 2006.
Last night, Roberto Baggio, Ruud Gullit and Franco Baresi were to play a charity game in Florence organized by the latest sufferer, the former Milan, Fiorentina and Italy striker Stefano Borgonovo, 44.
Now paralyzed and speaking with a computer-generated voice, Borgonovo is raising funds for research into the nerve-wasting condition known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or more commonly Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the US baseball player who died of it in 1941.
“I want to find the penicillin of 2008,” said Borgonovo, who scored the goal that put Milan into the 1990 European Cup final.
In Turin investigators have identified heading the ball as well as doping, including the use of legal anti-inflammatory drugs, as possible triggers for the disease among the soccer players, typically those who played for more than five seasons in Italy during the 1980s and 1990s.
But Guariniello said the fertilizers used to treat pitches were also in the spotlight.
“We are interviewing retired groundsmen and analyzing chemicals they used, including those containing formaldehyde,” he said. “There could be a connection with the incidence of this disease among agricultural workers.”
Further research is to be carried out by a group led by Paolo Zeppillo, a former doctor to the Italy team, who will be given funding of 150,000 euros (US$203,460) by the soccer federation.
“We shall be looking at a genetic predisposition among sufferers, set off by something in soccer, although I have doubts about current theories,” he said. “Other sports are played on grass, involve head trauma and have doping, so why don’t we see the disease there?”
As research continues, the disease is cutting a swath through a generation of players, including the former Genoa captain Gianluca Signorini and former Como midfielder Adriano Lombardi, leaving last night’s players wondering if they were raising money to fight an illness that will one day take them.
“We need to find out about this,” said Celeste Pin, Borgonovo’s former room-mate at Fiorentina.
“It is striking down soccer players, which does not leave you feeling very serene,” Pin said.
Magistrates have also looked into the high number of Fiorentina players suffering tumors and heart attacks, amid suspicions that performance-enhancing drugs may have had an influence.
“Our survey shows a higher than average rate of thyroid, colon, pancreatic and liver cancers among soccer players generally,” Guariniello said.
But Lou Gehrig’s disease remains the most serious affliction, he said, adding that he hoped help would come from other countries, particularly the UK.
By David Gaines on Oct 14, 2008
A Young Crusader Speaks
about Pesticides, Children and Cancer
Evidence presented to the Standing Committee on Environment and
Sustainable Development, Chair, Charles Caccia, Pesticide Awareness Day,
Ottawa, Ontario, September 25, 2001
Mr. Jean-Dominique Levesque-René (Individual Presentation):
Good afternoon. It is an honour for me to have been invited here this afternoon by the Honourable Charles Caccia. Thank you, sir, for inviting me to attend A Pesticide Awareness Day on the Hill.
My name is Jean-Dominique Levesque-René and I live on Ile Bizard, a west end Montreal suburb. I’m 18 years old and I attend École Jeanne-Sauvé in Dorval.
I’m here today to speak to you about a subject near and dear to me for the past seven years. It is of great interest to me because it concerns children, their health and the environment in which they live. I would like to recount briefly for you my personal experience and how chemical pesticides have affected my own health.
Let me relate to you my quest to safeguard the health of all children in my community. My fight for a healthier environment began quite unexpectedly one January evening in 1994. I was watching The Simpsons on television when I felt a lump on the right side of my neck. I showed it to my mother who wasted no time bringing me to Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montreal. I had no idea what lay ahead for me. I spent two weeks at the hospital undergoing a battery of medical tests as doctors tried to diagnose my condition. I was a virtual prisoner in the hospital. I was frightened and worried, not to mention extremely tired. This wasn’t normal for a 10 year old.
After my lump was biopsied, a doctor came to deliver the bad news. The day was February 11, 1994. I remember it very well. He told me: “Jean-Dominique, you have a disease called cancer. Your type of cancer is called large cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It attacks a person’s lymph nodes as well as their immune system which protects against bacteria and viruses.” This isn’t the kind of news a 10-year-old boy expects to receive. Before, I had been thinking about going home and playing with my dog and my friends. Now, I was thinking about dying. I didn’t want to die, not at my age. I cried and so too did my parents and my sister. They were devastated. It was the saddest day of my life.
Before starting my chemotherapy treatments, an oncologist came and explained the procedure to me. I didn’t know that my life would be turned upside down or that this was only the start of a life-long struggle. I agreed to take part in a North American experimental research trial which would improve my chances for a cure. I was one of a group of 33 American and Canadian children. I received intensive chemotherapy treatments every three weeks over a period of 49 weeks.
The odds of my surviving this disease were 50 per cent. The doctor had cautioned me that all of my hair would fall out and that I would likely be sterile when I reached adulthood. Two weeks after I started chemotherapy, I lost all of my hair. I was bald and looked like an old man. I wore a baseball cap to cover my bald head.
Throughout my illness, I felt very alone. I spent my entire days lying in a hospital bed. I missed going to school and playing with my friends. I had a lot of time to think things over and to ask myself some questions.
When I arrived at Sainte-Justine, I noticed that there were many children there from Ile Bizard who were being treated for cancer. It was very strange. I discovered that half of Ile Bizard is covered by golf courses where pesticides are used to maintain the greens. There are no heavy industries or high-voltage power lines in my municipality, only residential areas surrounded by three golf courses. My city has a population of 13,5000, including 4,000 children.
During my hospital stay, I recalled that when I was two-and-a-half-years old, I had had a very bad nosebleed and been transported by ambulance to the hospital. I remembered making numerous trips back to the hospital because of nosebleeds. The doctors were unable to pinpoint the cause of my symptoms. Once, I broke out in a bad rash after playing on the lawn, two days after it had been sprayed with pesticides. I was seen by a dermatologist who immediately established a link between my rash and my exposure to pesticides on the lawn.
In the spring of 1987, my parents stopped using chemical pesticides on their lawn. My symptoms disappeared completely. They would reappear when I was exposed to grass in public parks treated with pesticides and when I played at a friend’s home where pesticides had been used.
During my chemotherapy sessions, I thought about the probable link between my cancer and my exposure to pesticides. After researching the subject for one month, I came across a pamphlet published by the American Cancer Society. It contained a picture of a child playing with his dog while wearing a mask. The pamphlet established a link between non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the use of lawn herbicides containing 2,4-D, the most widely used lawn herbicide in Canada. The dialogue was straightforward and I quickly understood that exposing children like myself to pesticides posed a danger to their health.
It was then I asked my parents to take me to meet the mayor of Ile Bizard so that I could show him the American Cancer Society’s pamphlet on the dangers associated with pesticide use. I told him how concerned I was about the number of Ile Bizard children suffering from cancer.
At the same time, I asked him to pass a bylaw banning pesticide use in our municipality. The date was May 6, 1994. The mayor did not take my request seriously, so I decided to organize a demonstration with the help of a few friends and their parents. We marched in front of City Hall with colored balloons and placards. Television camera crews were on the scene and my protest caught the attention of all local media. My plan was to heighten the awareness of elected municipal officials, to let them know what was happening to the children of Ile Bizard and to emphasize the importance of safeguarding their health.
The time had come to do battle. Just about every month, I attended the meeting of municipal councillors, urging them to adopt a bylaw banning the use of chemical pesticides. Each time, the mayor would answer that there was no scientific evidence to establish a link between cancer in humans and pesticides.
Yet, I knew for a fact that many of Ile Bizard’s children had contracted cancer. The reasons why I had to fight for my life then became clear to me. After a stay in intensive care, I overheard a doctor telling my parents that I would not survive a bout with infection contracted following a chemotherapy session. He was wrong. For the first time, I fought to stay alive. I understood then that my life was to have an even greater purpose. I discovered the mystery of life, not the mystery of death.
While I was a patient at Sainte-Justine, I posted a map of Quebec on the wall of my hospital room. Each time a child suffering from cancer was admitted, I would ask him where he lived. That’s how I discovered that many children from Ile Bizard had cancer, 22 in all. They were suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma, Ewing’s sarcoma or bone or brain cancer. These were my own personal findings.
I then began to put pressure on researchers at Hôpital Sainte-Justine to compile official statistics on the number of cancer cases among Ile Bizard’s children. With the cooperation of Montreal’s public health department, they compiled figures which were reported in La Presse on February 21, 1998. These figures showed that the cancer rate on Ile Bizard was four times that for the entire province of Quebec.
Unfortunately, many of my friends succumbed to their illness. I will never forget my friend Marie-Eve who died of leukemia on November 6,1996. She was 12 years old. Before dying, she said to me: “Jean-Do, you have to live. It’s time for me to go, but you have a lot of work to do to protect the children”. Marie-Eve helped me find the courage I needed to never give up the fight.
For the past seven years, I have been visiting cities and communities across Canada. I have met with children and their parents and I have observed that children seem to be suffering a great deal from asthma, allergies, learning disabilities and cancer. I cannot remain silent. Each time pesticides are sprayed in my neighbourhood, I react with an asthma attack, my allergies flare up and I get nosebleeds. I also suffer from learning disabilities in school and I have to work harder to succeed.
I recall speaking to a class of sixth graders in a Granby, Quebec primary school. One student asked me if I missed a lot of school while I was undergoing my chemotherapy treatments at the hospital. I told him that I had missed two and half years in all. His response: “Lucky you”. I told him that I would rather have gone to school than contracted cancer.
My greatest wish is that doctors talk to their patients about the danger of exposure to pesticides and the associated health risks. I firmly believe that cities and towns must ban the use of pesticides to improve the appearance of lawns and gardens. Our elected municipal, provincial and federal officials must protect their children from these toxic chemicals. I urge you to assume your responsibilities and to lobby the Minister of Health, the Honourable Allan Rock, for a ban on pesticides. All Members of Parliament and all public servants need to be made aware of the dangers of pesticides in our environment. Each and everyone of us has a duty to
protect our children’s health.
In conclusion, I want you to know that something positive came out of my illness. Having cancer was not an enjoyable experience, but this struggle taught me to accept my responsibilities as a member of the community. We can do something to help children. You can make a difference.
I’m reminded of words of Rachel Carson: “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
Thank you.
By ***ic*** on Oct 15, 2008
Okay, so the city admin said that we’d all save money because of less maintenance, and they meant it. Why is anyone surprised? ***icle***
By Dotti Poggi on Oct 28, 2008
The Parks Dept. has a synthetic turf renovation planned for Ferry Point Park this next year.We have asked that the comfort station be built before the field.
We have asked that this park be used for a more diverse sporting experience for years now. The Com. Bd 10 and District 13 find it convenient to push all the adult hispanic soccer leagues into our park. This keeps the other parks in their district with grass and less illegal venders and violence.
We need to lessen the soccer in our park and widen the use of this beautiful peace of NYC Parks property to benefit a broader range of children and adults.
After each sunday for six months (from May to Nov.) It takes parks dept. workers 4 days to clean up after these teams. Our grass is dissappearing as the visitors illegally create fields wherever they want.
The baseball fields are useless even for practice because there are permanent iron soccer posts located in the outfields.
There still is no bathroom for 8000 people per weekend although the croton dollars have been put aside.
The few portosans paid for by the teams do little to help.
On Sundays women squat all along the waterfront and leave pampers, and tampons behind. Most men venture into the Wildlife Habits which create a myriad of paths, toilet tissue and piles of poop throughout the wooded area.
This is discraceful.
When will this be addressed?
Our Council has not put a dime towards remedying this situation.
We need some people to call Councilman James Vacca and ask why this is not on his agenda.
Why does he neglect this park in his District?
How much of his allotted funds have gone towards this park? (0)
By Dotti Poggi on Oct 28, 2008
I don’t understand the less maintenance theory????
for over 30 years there has been no maintenance on the soccer fields at Ferry Point Park.
painting of the one set of bleachers for 7 soccers fields with no benches, and repair of the wood once in a while?
we could not get our past parks manager to have a rock taken out of the soccer field.
our volunteers took out a few for the soccer teams.
Our volunteers ask us if they could plant grass seed on the fields. The parks dept says they do not have grass seed to give us.
The excuses of the Parks Dept. for doing nothing is that there are plans for renovation in this West side (110 acre side) of the park some year soon.
In the mean time parks throughout the borough are seeing millions and millions of dollars in renovations for small little 3 acre areas.
7 soccer fields 2 cricket fields of Ferry Point get 4.5 million, and many playgrounds and some small pocket parks get 3 to 6 million each.
The Waterfront of Pelham Bay gets 6 million, the West side of Ferry Point where few people will use it get 21 million and another 51 million for the “golf Course”
yet the West side which is heavily used gets 4.5 million including a comfort station? and a synthetic field?
Can someone clue me in on the reasoning behind this?
By Dotti Poggi on Oct 28, 2008
As far as pesticides,
There is no grass on the soccer fields of FP Park.
They are large expanses of dirt.
Ferry Point is Sprayed annually for West Nile Virus. I believe it’s mosquitos have tested positive each year for the virus.
YET there is a huge fresh water accumulation in the neglected parking lot, (Lake FP) and a huge accumulation of fressh water in the landfill called FP West.
Why not eliminate the fresh water ponds instead of spraying?
By ***mricle*** on Oct 29, 2008
If the freshwater ponds contain wetland organisms, there is reason to protect, not eliminate them. Perhaps dragonfly larvae and small fish could be introduced to help control mosquitoes.
By Dotti Poggi on Mar 12, 2009
I just want to clarify Ferry Point Parks Structure as even I keep referring to the wrong sides…
The Bronx/Whitestone Bridge divides the Park into two sides East 220 Acres & West 110 Acres
The East side is where the future golf course is planned. A previous raw garbage landfill/ now a dirt landfill.(51 million Mayoral Funds)
There are 2 future Parks planned for the East side. Balcolm Ave. Community Park and the Water front Promenade park (crescent shaped along the East River)(19 & 21 million of Mayoral Funds)
The West side is where there are 5000 to 8000 Soccer Players/Cricket Players and their Families each weekend from May to Nov.
There is no Comfort Station for the 700 volunteers that attend the projects each year.
May starts the 4.5 million (Croton Money)
construction of a Comfort Station/some pathways/synthetic turf field?