Douglas County Synthetic Turf Applications

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

BACKGROUND Douglas County Parks, Trails and Building Grounds (PT&BG) continually strives to become more efficient by using fewer resources and providing a better product for recreational users. To that end, in 2001 Colorado was entrenched in a major drought resulting in an opportunity for Douglas County PT&BG to reevaluate the design palate for its regional parks. Douglas County looked for new and creative ways to provide the same or better recreational services to the public while reducing maintenance costs and water usage. A major portion of the ideal new design has been the use of synthetic turf on programmed sports fields, both new and retrofitted onto existing fields, where feasible. By installing synthetic turf while reducing the amount of irrigated turf in the two regional parks that have been designed since 2001, Douglas County has been able to cut water consumption by more than 50% and maintenance costs by 30% per acre in just those two parks. Currently, 22% of all turf within the Douglas County PT&BG system is synthetic turf. The installation of synthetic turf not only allowed the County to reduce costs, it also increased field availability by almost 40% by allowing fields to be used all year as opposed to only seven to eight months per year on irrigated turf fields. This provides users with reduced loss of playing time when there is inclement weather (fields are closed when snow is on the field). The duration between games and seasons is also lessened because synthetic turf does not need time to recover like irrigated fields do. Douglas County has been able to reduce annual water consumption by 684,000 gallons (approximately 2-acre feet) of water per acre of synthetic turf. This is not only good for the environment, but also results in substantial monetary savings. As water costs continue to increase each year in Colorado, savings continue to increase as well. Douglas County has been able to reduce maintenance costs from $10,000 per acre of irrigated turf to $3,000 per acre of synthetic turf. Synthetic turf, when compared to irrigated turf, also reduces the amount of fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fuel, vehicle trips, and paint needed to prepare a field for play.HIGHLAND HERITAGE REGIONAL PARK SYNTHETIC TURF IMPROVEMENTS Seventeen acres of synthetic turf was installed in Douglas County regional parks between 2004 and 2012. Of that, approximately 2.3 acres of synthetic turf was installed at Highland Heritage Regional Park located in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Highland Heritage Regional Park is a 92-acre park that was established in the late 1980s as a sports complex for the south Denver Metro region. All fields were originally developed as irrigated blue grass turf. In 2005, approximately 2.3 acres (one field) was retrofitted with synthetic turf. As a component of the project, sports field lighting was also installed where none had been in the past. This field is located in the most densely populated portion of the county. As a result of the synthetic turf improvements at Highland Heritage Regional Park, it is now the most heavily used field within Douglas County’s park system. This field is rented an average of 300 days per year and used predominately for soccer practices, games and summer camps. Because of the amount of use this field receives, it was the first to show signs of wear and present safety concerns. In 2012, after eight seasons of constant use, Douglas County contracted to remove and replace this field. Recycling the existing synthetic turf and crumb rubber was a major concern for Douglas County. As part of the Request for Proposals, contractors bidding on the project were required to state how and where all materials were to be recycled. In the end, the County was able to re-use more than 40% of the existing crumb rubber on the field reducing the amount that was re-purposed into other rubber products, and the amount of new rubber needed. A portion of the old synthetic turf was sold to golf courses to line sand traps; the remaining turf was sent to a plastic lumber provider to be melted down and used in extruded lumber products. The County was able to work with the contractor to upgrade the synthetic turf fiber that was used to meet all FIFA 2-Star ratings and re-grade the sub-base to FIFA 2-Star requirements. This has produced the only FIFA 2-Star rated field in the inter-mountain west, something that the County is proud to have accomplished. In hindsight, Douglas County has determined that the amount of play a field has is more valuable than the length of time that a field will last or the turf manufacturer used. After eight seasons, the fields that were replaced were installed at the same time two others were and the County expected to get another three to five years of use prior to replacement. All in all, the use of synthetic turf on sports fields within the Douglas County PT&BG system has proven to be the right choice because of cost savings, playability, environmental issues, and overall satisfaction of users.