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Hastings-on-Hudson · PFAS History

From "Zero PFAS" to
No "Intentionally Added" PFAS

How the PFAS promise evolved from the preliminary specifications through the bond vote, the final bid, and the contract award.

Hastings Alliance for Safe Fields (HASF)

We are a group of concerned citizens of Hastings-on-Hudson — students, parents, grandparents and community members — working to protect the health of our children and our environment. We are also committed to holding our school district accountable to the promises made to voters and ensuring that residents can trust the commitments their elected officials make.

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The District's PFAS commitment went through several distinct stages between May 2025 and April 2026. Each stage either strengthened or weakened the protection voters were promised — and the gap between what was promised and what was delivered is at the heart of the community's concern.

Sources: community meeting recordings, board memos, the RFP bid document, and the Gradient testing report.

Preliminary Specs
May 13, 2025
LA Group Issues Pre-Referendum Requirements
Bob Kernan of the LA Group sends the "Pre-Referendum Synthetic Turf Requirements" to the Hastings-on-Hudson Turf Committee. Requirement #10 reads:
"The product shall not be manufactured using PFAS."
This language contained a legal loophole — it only addressed the manufacturing process, not whether PFAS could be present in the finished product.
View Pre-Referendum Requirements →
Board Memo
May 20, 2025
Superintendent Forwards Specs to Full Board
Dr. McKersie forwards Kernan's memo to the full Board, identifying the "Internal Turf Work Group": Alex Dal Piaz (Board President), Theresa McCaffrey (BOE Member), Bill McKersie (Superintendent), Maureen Caraballo (Business Official), Joe Martorana (Director of Facilities), and Drew Wendol (Director of Athletics).
View Board memo →
⚠ Loophole Flagged
May 29, 2025
Community Forum: Epidemiologist Flags the Loophole
At the Community Board Forum, epidemiologist Chloe Teasdale challenges the "not manufactured with PFAS" language, warning it is a legal loophole. Dal Piaz insists it means there's no PFAS "in the turf itself." Teasdale corrects him:
"That language is specifically drafted so that companies can have PFAS in their materials. They can source those materials. But as long as they don't add PFAS when manufacturing them, then they are legally covered."
Watch video (1:42:55) →
✓ Promise Made
June 9 + 13, 2025
"Zero PFAS" Promised to Voters
The Board's PowerPoint on June 9 states "No PFAS." Then, four days before the vote, the District sends a community-wide email on June 13, 2025 explicitly stating:
"It will not contain PFAS chemicals — Traditional turf fields contain PFAS chemicals, but recent New York State regulations mandate zero PFAS turf. The turf Hastings is considering would have zero PFAS."
View the email →
✓ Vote Passes
June 17, 2025
Bond Passes by 71 Votes
Proposition 3 passes 1,440 to 1,369 — a margin of just 71 votes. Nearly 1,400 residents voted against it. A shift of 36 votes would have defeated it.
Later, public testimony would leave no doubt that the "zero PFAS" commitment influenced people to vote yes on Prop 3.
Hudson Independent — Bond vote results →
✓ Promise Reaffirmed
October 25, 2025
Community Forum: "PFAS-Free" Commitment Repeated
At a public Community Forum, the District's technical partners and Board President Dal Piaz repeatedly reaffirm the PFAS-free commitment:
"The product needs to be recyclable, it needs to be PFAS-free. The community has spoken and that's the items that we are listing as a prerequisite." — Matt Milnamow, LA Group
"The promises that we made as part of the pre-referendum phase are really taken into consideration as part of the design phase." — Bob Kernan, LA Group
"People voted on those specs so that the RFP would contain those specs and the winning bidder has to meet them." — Community member Jim Lynch
When community member Aarthi Muthukrishnan asks "Is there really a PFAS-free turf? And if you don't find a PFAS-free turf what are you going to do?" — Dal Piaz responds:
"New York State has certified all of these products as PFAS-free. They wouldn't be able to even participate in the bidding process."
This claim is false. New York State has no certification process for PFAS-free turf. When community member Louise later asks "We were promised fields that had no PFAS… Is the District accountable to that promise?" — Dal Piaz repeats: "New York State has mandated that all turf has to be PFAS-free."
Watch the Community Forum video (starts at 20:00) →
✓ Specs Strengthened
February 10, 2026
Updated Specs: "PFAS Prohibition" Added
After much community pressure, Dr. McKersie issues an updated memo strengthening the PFAS language beyond the original loophole wording. The new standard:
"The synthetic turf shall not contain or be treated with PFAS substances for any purpose."
This was identified by Dr. McKersie as one of the ten "priority specifications," which define the minimum requirements a turf system must meet to be acceptable.
View February memo →
✓ RFP Issued
February–March 2026
RFP Goes to Vendors with "PFAS Prohibition"
The Request for Proposals sent to vendors includes the strengthened PFAS standard as a priority specification (Section 4c, page 809):
"PFAS Prohibition: No carpet offered for sale shall contain or be treated with PFAS substances for any purpose."
Bids are due March 24, 2026. FieldTurf submits a bid under these terms.
View RFP, page 809 →
⚠ Vendor Letter
March–April 2026
FieldTurf Provides Manufacturer's Letter
FieldTurf's Executive Vice-President Darren Gill provides a letter claiming the proposed turf products:
"do not contain any intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in its formulation or manufacturing process."
Note: this letter uses "intentionally added" — weaker language than the RFP's "for any purpose" standard.
View manufacturer's letter, page 55 →
✗ PFAS Detected
April 7, 2026
Vendor Testing Confirms PFAS Are Present
The District releases Gradient's testing report — conducted and paid for by FieldTurf — fewer than 24 hours before the Board vote. Key findings:
PFOA detected in every single sample tested. EPA health goal: zero. No safe level exists.
PFOS detected at 590 ppt in blade samples — 147× the EPA's drinking water limit of 4 ppt.
Two independent national scientific experts reviewed the results. Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), told the Rivertowns Dispatch the report shows the product "clearly has PFAS" and has "the types of PFAS that we know are dangerous." She added: "If you have a chemical where there's no safe level of exposure, minimizing the amount of that chemical in any way possible is always advisable."
Rivertowns Dispatch, May 1, 2026 →
✗ Contract Awarded
April 8, 2026
Board Awards Contract — Less Than 24 Hours Later
Despite the testing results, the Board votes to award the contract to FieldTurf/Laura Li Industries. Two members are absent. One member votes against.
The Rivertowns Dispatch reported that parent Chloe Teasdale expressed her "shock" that the board was moving forward with a vote on a vendor after giving the community less than 12 hours to review the information about this vendor.
At the April 22 meeting, Dal Piaz defends the decision:
"There is zero intentionally added PFAS in this product… this met the standards."
The community approved turf with "zero PFAS." The RFP required turf with no PFAS "for any purpose." The Board now wants to apply the no "intentionally added" PFAS standard — which is exactly the legal loophole the Board was warned about on May 29, 2025. No "intentionally added" PFAS was not the standard in the final bid document. The "PFAS Prohibition" was the standard — one of ten priority specifications said by the Superintendent to define the minimum requirements the turf system must meet to be acceptable.
Rivertowns Dispatch, April 17, 2026 →
⏰ Deadline
December 31, 2026
NYS Law Bans This Product
NYS Carpet EPR Law (ECL § 27-3313) takes full effect. No carpet — including artificial turf — may be sold in New York containing PFAS "for any purpose."
The fields at Burke Estate are scheduled for demolition June 1, 2026 — and this turf would be illegal to sell in New York once the law takes effect at the end of the year.
NYS Carpet EPR Law (ECL § 27-3313) →
⚖ Legal Appeal Filed
May 4, 2026
Community Residents File Appeal with NYSED
Three Hastings-on-Hudson residents file a formal appeal with the New York State Education Department (Appeal No. 22746) seeking to stay and annul the April 8 contract award. The petition contends the contract does not comply with the RFP's PFAS Prohibition (Section 4c): "No carpet offered for sale shall contain or be treated with PFAS substances for any purpose." The vendor's own testing confirms PFAS are present.
Read the petition →
✗ District Opposes Stay
May 14, 2026
District Files Opposition Through Keane & Beane P.C.
The District's attorneys file an Affirmation in Opposition and a sworn Affidavit from Board President Dal Piaz. Their opposition rests on three arguments:
1. Petitioners lack standing — being a resident or taxpayer alone is not sufficient without showing personal injury
2. The "intentionally added" PFAS standard applies — based on a non-binding DEC stakeholder footnote from June 2025
3. Even if PFAS are present, the Board had authority to waive the noncompliance
Argument 3 is a significant concession — by arguing the Board could waive noncompliance, the District implicitly acknowledges there may be noncompliance to waive.
Read the District's response →
⚠ Sworn Affidavit
May 14, 2026
Dal Piaz Sworn Affidavit: "Results Do Not Establish PFAS Are Present"
In his sworn affidavit, Board President Dal Piaz argues that the Gradient test results do not establish that the FieldTurf product actually contains PFAS — a claim that directly contradicts Gradient's own report, which found PFOA in every sample and PFOS at 590 ppt.
"The Gradient Memorandum concludes that the test results of the FieldTurf samples are consistent with no PFAS being used in the manufacture of the turf." — Burns Affirmation summarizing Dal Piaz's position
Dal Piaz's entire defense relies on the June 2025 DEC stakeholder footnote suggesting "intentionally added" PFAS as the enforcement standard. That footnote has no legal force and was not adopted in the DEC's December 2025 enforcement discretion letter. Critically, it also does not appear in the RFP itself — the standard the Board issued to vendors was "no PFAS for any purpose."
Read the Dal Piaz affidavit →

The Bottom Line

The community was promised "zero PFAS." The RFP required turf with no PFAS "for any purpose." FieldTurf sent a letter claiming no "intentionally added" PFAS — then its own paid consultant's testing confirmed PFAS are present at 147× the EPA drinking water limit.

The Board now wants to apply the no "intentionally added" PFAS standard — which is exactly the legal loophole the Board was warned about on May 29, 2025. No "intentionally added" PFAS was not the standard in the final bid document. The "PFAS Prohibition" was the standard — one of ten priority specifications defined by the Superintendent as the minimum requirements the turf system must meet to be acceptable.

The fields at Burke Estate are scheduled for demolition June 1, 2026. The community is asking the Board to pause the contract and honor its word.