Unsafe playing conditions. Usage. Plastic pollution. Climate change. Youth athletics. All critical issues. But the discussion surrounding the MVRHS playing fields has been reduced to a numbers game.

High school consultant Chris Huntress’s estimates for what it would cost to install and maintain grass fields are considerably more than The Field Fund Inc. just spent: $200,000 on two grass fields with a new well and state of the art irrigation system in Oak Bluffs, using local labor. Even with public procurement, why would that cost be $274,702 for one field?

Yes, the high school would require more upkeep, but certainly not Mr. Huntress’s $28,500. We have spent less than $10,000 per field annually. Our advisor Jerad Minnick has evaluated the high school fields including soil testing and estimates that we would need to spend about $20,000.

In December, Mr. Huntress said a grass field could be used 680 to 820 hours a year. In January, he has grass fields only used 425 hours a year. What’s the real number?

What is real is that The Field Fund has invested $400,000 in the fields and equipment for the Island and it shows.

But there are bigger questions to discuss:

Are we not going to consider the environmental impacts of installing a two- acre plastic field, particularly in a zone two wellhead protection area? Even when organizations such as the Vineyard Conservation Society and the Mass Audubon Society have said they are concerned?

Why, when students around the Island have worked to ban plastics, is the high school going in the opposite direction?

Where are we getting the $1,060,000 for this one field and what do we have to give up to get it? How will we pay for the $500,000 replacement cost? How can taxpayers support these big-ticket items when we are also looking at an estimated $100 million high school renovation? Why did the $350,000 for the design of this track project come from the excess and deficiency funds?

The Vineyard is not Anywhere USA. We are the Island that tried to secede from Massachusetts. We told Big Mac, “No. You can’t come here.” Our kids go sailing on the Shenandoah for class trips. As a small community, we value our land and waters. We value sports and excel at them. But does valuing sports mean we have to put our kids on plastic?

We maintain that grass is the safest and most fiscally and environmentally responsible choice for our community.

Mollie Doyle, Dardanella Slavin and Rebekah Thomson

Chilmark