NASHUA -- The Stellos Stadium turf was coming apart at the seams and needed to be replaced immediately to ensure the safety of the high school athletes on the numerous teams that have played on the field since its installation in 2011, according to a technician who inspected the turf in mid-July.
"The field is getting old and tired ... it's time to consider a new playing surface," Roger Clough, of New England Turf Management, wrote in the report he issued nearly three months before school and city officials abruptly shuttered the stadium in early October.
Adding to the apparent delays in addressing the field's worsening condition is the fact that the turf installed roughly 14 years ago has a "G-Max" rating of 200, considerably higher than the rating of 165 that is recommended by the Synthetic Turf Council, according to Diana Carpinone, an organic land care professional and a cofounder of Non Toxic Communities. Her company is a nationwide organization that consults with cities and towns on the benefits of natural grass rather than synthetic turf for youth playing surfaces.
The so-called G-Max rating is a measurement of impact that calculates the ability of a surface to absorb energy, Carpinone said. The industry considers a G-Max score of over 200 "extremely dangerous," including "posing a death risk," she added.
There was a time when a 200 rating was considered acceptable, Carpinone said. For instance, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission once required G-Max levels "to be less than, or equal to, 200."
But over time, professional sports venues and universities adopted a G-Max of 165, based on "updated science" and testing, she said. Most recently, the synthetic turf industry now suggests that the G-Max scores come in under 165, which, Carpinone said, would "ensure safety comparable to a grass field."
While Nashua is far from the only city or town that continues to use the 200 G-Max benchmark, Carpinone said it's troubling that teams were allowed to play on the Stellos turf despite its deteriorating condition and consistently high G-Max scores -- some of which exceeded 200 as far back as 2020, and again in 2022, she said.
Shawn Smith, director of operations for the school district, didn't immediately return a call Wednesday requesting comment.
Ward 2 Alderman Rick Dowd, who chairs the Joint Special School Building Committee, also couldn't be reached for comment.
Dowd said in a recent social media post that the JSSBC took jurisdiction of the Stellos turf replacement project earlier this year from the Board of Education, and began identifying funding to get the project underway.
He noted that the committee was in the process earlier this month of hiring a contractor for the project and getting the funding in place with a goal of beginning the project this fall, or possibly in the spring.
Since the JSSBC assumed control of the project, Dowd wrote, "it is being worked as fast as we can, but there are steps we have to follow."
At Tuesday's Board of Aldermen meeting, Mayor Jim Donchess said that members of the Stellos family, whose patriarch, the late James "Jimmy" Stellos, funded the stadium, have donated $200,000 toward the cost of the turf replacement project, which is estimated between $1 million and $1.5 million.