SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/126035
ket—more design-build and other solutions that don't involve just irrigation—the irrigation consultant's role might have to expand significantly into more than effectively developing and managing water resources. ASIC: Any new design or business trends in athletic fields that appear to be emerging? JLB: A couple of things. We've seen a shift from high-performance turf and irrigation systems to more modest projects, mostly due to restrictive budgets in this slower economy. With the popularity of artificial turf, our primary business has fallen off a bit. Artificial turf became pretty popular in the professional ranks, and now is becoming more popular at the high school and park & rec level. More recently, however, we're seeing an inkling of a movement back to real grass. I think it's related to the current generation of artificial turf products. There's really not much history or background on the performance of these newer products, and decision-makers really have to evaluate claims by manufacturers with no ability to validate them. We're seeing quite a few second surface replacements in fields, about every 8-10 years. Because the artificial turf safety issue is still up for debate, and certain artificial fields promote higher injury incidents, there's a prevailing feeling that artificial turf is okay, but grass is re-emerging as the preferred surface. There's also been a movement to large pay-for-play facilities, like big joint county-city projects of 15-20 soccer fields where fees are charged for use. We're starting to see the higher end of those facilities coming back to turf, as well. www.stma.org So those are trends we're experiencing. What's to come? I absolutely believe there will be intensive new regulations in water sourcing very soon. I further expect this trend to be a great opportunity for the irrigation and sports turf industries to be a huge part of an integrated green infrastructure paradigm. When we look toward the development of unknown irrigation technology, we see stadiums and facilities using their fields as water harvesting and water polishing enterprises, so stadium and grounds rainwater, storm water and wastewater will be collected below the sports fields, then polished in a system and reused in the facility. We've been looking at this for awhile. The challenge sports turf managers have is that they're in control of very little. Few get to decide the field or facilities they have to work with. They have to become empowered to be in position to make a difference. They certainly have the knowledge and aspirations. These things are coming, and sports turf managers should position themselves for more control over their professional destiny. ASIC: What about water sources? How has that evolved over the last decade? Should we be moving away from using potable water for irrigation? JLB: Clearly, water is being subsidized; its cost still is nowhere near the cost of supplying it. There's only one way to generate enough water for the population. Higher water rates are coming, and we'll see dramatic increases in cost. There remains a myopic assumption in the industry that turf man- SportsTurf 31