Key Points

  • The Appellate Division, Third Department, unanimously affirmed the dismissal of Zero Waste Ithaca's CPLR article 78 challenge to the Ithaca City Planning & Development Board's SEQRA negative declaration for Cornell University's synthetic turf project.
  • The court held that the board identified the relevant health and environmental concerns, including PFAS, SVOCs, VOCs and microplastics, took the requisite hard look and gave a reasoned elaboration for its determination.
  • The board relied on an engineering memorandum, peer-reviewed studies, a federal multiagency research study, Cornell's microplastics filtration plan and a condition requiring third-party PFAS testing of the turf ultimately selected.
  • The court reiterated that a type I action does not by itself require an environmental impact statement and that courts may not weigh the desirability of a SEQRA action or choose among alternatives.
  • Cornell's alternative grounds for affirmance were deemed academic; the judgment was affirmed without costs.

A New York appeals court on Thursday upheld the city of Ithaca's approval of new indoor and outdoor synthetic turf fields at Cornell University, rejecting an environmental group's claim that city planners overlooked the health risks of chemicals found in turf materials.

A five-justice panel of the Appellate Division, Third Department, ruled unanimously against Zero Waste Ithaca, a volunteer nonprofit that advocates against materials containing pollutants and toxic chemicals. Justice Mackey wrote the decision, which affirmed a Tompkins County judge's dismissal of the group's suit against the Ithaca City Planning & Development Board and Cornell.

The ruling leaves in place the board's negative declaration, a finding under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, known as SEQRA, that a project will not cause significant environmental harm and therefore needs no full environmental impact statement. The court held that the board met the law's demands by weighing industry, peer-reviewed and federal studies over months of public meetings, and by conditioning its approval on independent testing of the turf for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Cornell applied to the planning board in December 2023 for site plan approval of a project to expand recreational athletic facilities for students in its central campus, according to the decision. The project would replace and expand existing outdoor natural grass and synthetic turf fields with an updated outdoor synthetic turf field and an indoor one, housed with accompanying facilities in a nearby 90,000-square-foot building.

During the board's review, members of the public raised concerns about PFAS, semi-volatile and volatile organic compounds, and microplastics in the turf's component materials. The board directed Cornell to answer those concerns, then approved a final environmental assessment form concluding that the project did not pose a significant risk of harm to people or the environment. It issued the negative declaration and approved Cornell's application on the condition that the turf ultimately selected undergo third-party testing for PFAS.

Zero Waste Ithaca then sued under CPLR article 78. In the court's description, the group alleged that the board acted arbitrarily and capriciously because it "overlooked the documented dangers of certain chemicals used in components of synthetic turf" and wrongly spared the project an environmental impact statement.

The group's bid for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to halt construction was denied. After oral argument, Justice Mark Masler of state Supreme Court dismissed the petition in a judgment entered April 28, 2025, finding that the board had complied with SEQRA. The Third Department later denied the group's motion to block construction and installation of the turf fields while the appeal was pending, according to a footnote in Thursday's decision.

Justice Mackey described a narrow standard of review. "This Court will not disturb a SEQRA determination so long as the lead agency identified the pertinent areas of environmental concern, took a hard look at them and advanced a reasoned elaboration of the grounds for its determination," the justice wrote, quoting a 2024 Third Department decision. Courts are not to "weigh the desirability of any SEQRA action or choose among alternatives," the decision said.

Cornell's fields were a type I action, but such an action "does not, per se, necessitate the filing of an EIS," the court wrote.

"The record before us is extensive," Justice Mackey wrote, describing engineering and architectural reports, scientific studies and Cornell's application materials that the board reviewed while inviting public comment. A memorandum from H & A of New York Engineering and Geology, submitted by Cornell, cited two studies conducted by synthetic material producers finding that "fewer PFAS compounds were detected in synthetic turf, and at lower concentrations, than those that are present as a background condition in soil."

That memo concluded that "synthetic turf systems are safe for contact by people and will not harm groundwater or surface water." Another report before the board cited five peer-reviewed studies finding that synthetic turf would not cause adverse health effects above safety levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union, and that VOC emissions from the turf were generally not detectable.

The board also highlighted a federal multiagency research study that found only marginal, if any, difference in chemical metabolites between study populations and background samples or the general population.

The board nonetheless asked Cornell for more, including how it planned to address health concerns raised in public comments. Cornell responded that "more than 110 technical studies conducted by a variety of trusted scientific authorities" had concluded that "[a]rtificial turf has been shown to pose no health risk." The university also described a storm water management process with a filtration system built to capture microplastic particles as small as 0.212 millimeters, and it agreed to the third-party PFAS testing.

That record decided the appeal. "The record thus amply demonstrates that the planning board made a careful and deliberate consideration of the relevant areas of health and environmental concern, took the requisite hard look, and made a reasoned elaboration in issuing a negative declaration," Justice Mackey wrote. "The requirements of SEQRA having been met, we will not disturb the determination."

Justice Reynolds Fitzgerald, who presided, and Justices Fisher, McShan and Corcoran concurred. Because the board prevailed on the merits, the court did not reach alternative grounds for affirmance that Cornell had raised, calling them academic.

Zero Waste Ithaca was represented by Todd D. Ommen of the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic in White Plains. The planning board was represented by the office of Ithaca City Attorney Victor J. Kessler, and Cornell was represented by Jared M. Pittman.

The court affirmed the judgment without costs, leaving the dismissal of Zero Waste Ithaca's petition in place. The board's approval was conditioned on third-party PFAS testing of the synthetic turf ultimately selected for the project.