Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Temecula October 19th

Suzanne Palmer, RLA and Principal at DNA is teaming up with Eastern Municipal Water District to raise money for finding a cure for cancer. She has pledged to raise $500.00 of the $6,000.00 Team EMWD has committed to raise from donations. DNA has committed to support Suzanne and we are asking that you join us. I know times are tough but it is worthy organizations like these that suffer the most from poor economies and need us to dig deep. Let's help Suzanne and Team EMWD reach their goal!!! The following is a message from Suzanne..

Hey Everyone,

This year I am running again in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Temecula and for the first time I am doing some fundraising. I know everyone’s budget is more than tight right now, but this is a very worthy cause and I am asking for your help. Any size donation will help! Please pass this along to your friends and family to help support this important effort to find the cure for Cancer. The web site is awesome and full of great information on supporting this cause. My personal web page is linked below along with a donation request letter.

Thanks to you all!

Link to Web Page for more information and donation:http://komenie.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=280542&u=280542-233645600&e=1921550693

Green Posers (Part 2 of 3...continued from below blog)

The Environmental Disaster of Artificial Turf

So let’s look at what makes artificial turf such an enemy of the environment and health. Although not scientific in terms of laboratory research I have been an observer of artificial turf and its positive and negative attributes for many years. My personal observation comes from having 3 athletic children. My oldest son is 23 and he played division 1 baseball at Santa Clara University in Northern California. My daughter has played field hockey for the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California and it is in her last season there. My youngest son plays football and is a senior at Torrey Pines High School in Del Mar, California. They all played club soccer when they were younger and during their collective sports careers they have played on numerous artificial turf fields. I can tell you that my daughter loves playing on the surface because the ball plays much truer with less bad bounces. My sons would say the same about their sports. There is no doubt that there is an advantage from a playability standpoint. However they are also quick to say that more often than not in the spring to fall seasons the temperatures of the field can be extremely uncomfortable. They have received scrapes and burns from the synthetic strands of turf and it is generally a hard and unforgiving surface to fall on. The ground up tire flies in their eyes, sticking to their skin and hair. It is ingested and inhaled and there is no reasonable person on this earth that can say it could possibly be good for you. There are 60 known chemicals, toxins and carcinogens in rubber tires! Can you really debate the health issue?!?

Heating Up

As a spectator, standing on the field I have noticed the temperature increase by comparison to the surrounding environment. When I would arrive at my daughters away games at Berkley the temperature was a moderate 75 degrees and comfortable, yet on the artificial grass as I am watching the game I am perspiring. Why?
Recently, an article published from findings that the City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation released; they found the artificial turf temperatures were 8 degrees higher than adjacent asphalt and 39 degrees higher than natural turf. The artificial turf was 37 degrees higher than the ambient temperature of the surrounding area. On the hottest day of the year at a New York City park the synthetic turf was 86.5 degrees hotter than natural grass. The article went on to site similar results from researchers at Penn State.
My unscientific personal observations confirmed this research when I was watching my son work with his quarterback coach on a day in July at the Torrey Pines High School artificial turf football field. Torrey Pines High School is about a half mile from the Pacific Ocean. The stadium is sunken and not oriented to receive cooling breezes, but still, this is the coast. It was a warm enough day that I decided to wear shorts, shirt and flip flops…how So Cal of me! As I stood there watching Matt, I thought I would kick off my sandals and roll my toes in the “turf”. OUCH! It was like standing on an asphalt parking lot! Again, keep in mind this is the coast, not inland. His team practices on the natural turf field in August during “Hell Week” because of the unbearable heat of the artificial turf during that month. Ironic isn’t it?!!

Heat Island effect

Heat Island Effect is a phenomenon that occurs in the cities. It is primarily an urban effect due to the built environment; such as dark colored roof materials, asphalt and other dark colored impervious surfaces. These materials absorb the suns light and give off heat as a byproduct. That heat accumulates over the built environment and increases the ambient temperatures by varying amounts depending on the region. This same article referenced above recorded average temperature increases of 7 degrees during the hot summer months in New York.
Infrared Satellite imagery shows differences in surface temperatures relative to the amount of heat that they give off. A dramatic photo showed the same color/heat emanating from an artificial turf field right next to an asphalt play area. In other words, artificial turf reflects the same amount of heat as artificial turf thus contributing to the heat island effect. In effect; installing artificial turf is the same as laying down asphalt pavement in terms of the heat island effect.
The proven mitigation for the heat island effect is the planting of trees, shrubs and natural turf. This lowers the ambient temperatures, the plants absorb greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and they give off oxygen as their byproduct while filtering water and air pollutants. It doesn’t take a researcher from Harvard to tell me that replacing acres of natural turf with artificial turf has a negative effect on the environment while decreasing the positive environmental effects of natural turf at the same time.

More Later

Green Posers (Part 1 of 3)

Business has figured out that there is green in going green. There are a plethora of new products and services that have flooded the market with a desire to capitalize on the new environmentally conscience public. In a lot of cases these products and services represent the best of what industry and technology has to offer. They are sincere in their efforts and offer a win: win to the public. The public gets an environmentally sensitive product and the company gets profits. However, there are posers; those companies/industries that are focused on the color of money green and will put the public and the environment at risk regardless. The Artificial Turf Industry is a very good example of this frightening aspect of the green movement. Their product couldn’t be farther from being green, yet it is being marketed and accepted by many as being ecologically beneficial. But, in fact every square foot of this product that is installed outdoors and exposed to sunlight is an environmental time bomb; more on that later.

Win: Win or Win: Lose Green Economics
General Electric grossed 10 Billion dollars last year in their Eco-Imagination product line alone and they are projecting 20 Billion in 2010. They had previously committed 1.5 billion dollars in research for green products. Why? Because there is Green in going Green…and they can feel good about it too! What a concept! Make money hand over fist and create a better environment. Talk about Win, Win! They have done the research and produced products that save on energy and are produced with environmentally sound practices.
General Electric is not the only one that has rushed to market with green products and services. Many have rushed to market hawking their green products and services because they have found that the public is anxious to find and use them. In fact the public is not only anxious to use these products, they are demanding them. The public is saying “go green or go home” and the corporate world is responding. The reasons for this are pretty self explanatory really and not the point of this article. The point of this article is while there is “Green in going Green” some goods and services coming to market are only one color green…and that is the color of money and profit. They provide no green environmental benefit to the public, no environmental fix but they are instead, cleverly disguised ways to profit from a public that is ardent in their desire to be better stewards of the environment. This is Win: Lose green economics.


Artificial Turf
Astro Turf, born in the 1960’s has changed over the years. Primarily developed for indoor use, the natural grass replacement made sense in areas where grass could not be grown successfully. Today the lure to expand the use is greater for the green imposter because of, the scarcity of water, dwindling school and municipal maintenance budgets and an admittedly better more “natural” looking product. Additionally, private homeowners are experiencing increasing demands on their time and decreased interest in spending hours a week of maintenance, not to mention water costs and drought concerns. But with the Green Movement” further motivation is provided to be environmentally sensitive. The “green” lure may be enough for some very well meaning people to spend the money to install the natural grass replacement. Truth be known, as a landscape architect, I have specified a private putting green for a homeowner that would allow refinement of their short game. However, we used natural sand as a base and instead of ground up tires, as is common to the artificial turf industry; we used very fine sand as a topping. This gave my client an all weather surface to practice their putting without employing a golf superintendant for the onerous and expensive maintenance regime. It was a good, small scale, solution. I digress a bit here, but it is only to say that there are some uses for this product in limited areas, primarily indoors and without rubber tires infill.

More on this Later