This is something that our school currently is struggling with. As of now, the High School has a regular turf field. They use pesticides to grow the grass, and generally throughout the football year, the field gets gradually torn up and turn into a mud bowl (the Cleveland weather does not help). There is a push by many of the Westlake residents to switch to an artificial turf field. In doing some research, however, I have found some drawbacks to this solution. According to the University of Arkansas Agricultural department, (http://turf.uark.edu/turfhelp/archives/021109.html) artificial fields are not maintenance free. They require infill, "1) additional infill, 2) irrigation because of unacceptably high temperatures on warm-sunny days, 3) chemical disinfectants, 4) sprays to reduce static cling and odors, 5) drainage repair and maintenance, 6) erasing and repainting temporary lines, and 7) removing organic matter accumulation." According to the Michigan State Certified Sports Turf Manager, costs for the artificial turf field are very similar to costs for the fields they had before, natural turf fields. Other cons for artificial turf are: it has to be replaced much more often (8-10 years), it is more expensive to replace than natural turf, and it requires special disposal costs that are very high. In doing further research, I have found a more suitable, natural answer. Organic grass fields are being employed all over the United States, but the ones looked at in this study reside in New York. Attached is a study done by Charles Osborne & Doug Wood for Grassroots Environmental Education in March, 2010. In summary, it shows the effectiveness of organic grass over the years, as, although initial costs are higher, over the years the organic playing field is actually cheaper as costs for irrigation drastically decrease compared to a field that uses synthetic fertilizers where irrigation costs increase as the years continue. The article is linked here- http://www.grassrootsinfo.org/pdf/turfcomparisonreport.pdf.