A blue sign, draped across a perimeter of cyclone fencing, greets anyone who happens by Broad Street and Pattison Avenue with a cheerful message: “Welcome to your new FDR Park.” Plastered next to the sign are renderings of proposed renovations, gauzy images of green spaces and happy visitors. The city’s $250 million vision for the South Philadelphia park still calls for some of that green to be fake: a dozen multi-purpose playing fields, and four baseball and softball fields, all of which are expected to be outfitted with artificial turf.
In March, 11 residents sued the city in Orphans’ Court, and sought a preliminary injunction to bring work on the park’s makeover to a halt. Among the residents’ concerns was the likelihood that the turf fields would contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — so-called forever chemicals that have been linked to multiple types of cancer, and are found in a range of everyday items, including turf and firefighters’ protective equipment. Lawyers for the city, in a response filed in court in April, wrote that three companies that are in the running to provide the turf for FDR Park have “provided written guarantees that their products do not contain PFAs.”
But in its court filing, the city included a Shaw Industries lab report, which purportedly showed that no PFAS were detected in its product.
The Inquirer shared that report with two experts on forever chemicals: Graham Peaslee, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame, and Kyla Bennett, a former EPA official who now directs science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
