That has left local advocates enraged.
“That’s lying, we call that lying,” Diana Carpinone, president of Non Toxic Portsmouth, said of the consultants’ promises. “We want [the council] to sue and go after Weston & Sampson, and go after the manufacturers, and say, ‘This is fraud, we bought a product you told us was PFAS-free and it’s not.’”
Amico agreed that the broader process felt dishonest.
“I feel like our community has been deceived,” she said.
To Woodland, the entire issue boils down to multiple miscommunications. She does not think FieldTurf or Weston & Sampson had any ill intentions when they promised a PFAS-free field — they only meant that they were not purposely adding PFAS coatings to the turf.
She does not believe the city would opt against installing turf knowing what they know now. But Woodland added that officials wish they could have avoided “overgeneralizations” and communicated more precisely which compounds they were focused on.
“The city staff and its engineering consultants could have done a better job in 2020 discussing what could and what could not be expected, with regard to PFAS in an artificial turf field,” Woodland said. “The manufacturers could have done a better job at identifying elements of their manufacturing process that might generate PFAS compounds in the product.”
