The committee that oversees the operations of the village's Doubleday Field is receptive to learning more about turf management practices that do not require the use of toxic pesticides.

"We're as interested as you in doing the right thing," committee chairman Stuart Taugher told local environmental advocates Dr. John Davis and Michael Whaling who had attended Tuesday morning's meeting to discuss alternative management practices.

The pair had spoken briefly about pesticide use to the entire board of trustees during last month's meeting when Taugher invited them to meet with the committee.

Pesticide use on local playing field came to the forefront recently, following spraying at a soccer field at the Clark Sports Center as part of a turf renovation project. A petition, signed by 150 people concerned about the use of herbicides on playing fields, was presented to the board of trustees last month.

Tuesday morning, Doubleday Field head groundskeeper Joe Harris presented to the committee his regimen for the treatments he applies to the field.

Harris, who is in his 12th year of tending the turf on one of America's most famous ball diamonds, said he doesn't use herbicides "unless it is a last resort."

By now, Harris said, he has most of the dandelions and other broadleaf weeds under control and has turned to the time-tested method of pulling them up by the roots. "If I get them before they go to seed I'm taking care of my problem," he said. "I can control broadleaves by hand, but it takes time to get things under control."

But he does use some chemicals on the grass that last year netted him an award from lawn mower engine manufacturer Briggs and Stratton for having one of the 10 best lawns in the country.

Eight pounds of the popular herbicide Roundup was used on 15,000 square feet at the field on three occasions. It was used, Harris said, along the warning track and under the bleachers where it is not possible to use a lawn mower or string trimmer.

He also applied Pendulum 2G to help control a crabgrass infestation and when he put the field to bed for the year he applied a fungicide to prevents a condition called snow mold.

Areas affected by snow mold take an additional two to three weeks to green up in the spring and he can't wait that long because people are anxious to get on the field to play.

Dr. Davis commended Harris for using as little of the herbicides as possible, but said there are still reasons to be concerned about the use of chemical weedkillers.

The worry is not so much acute toxicity, but the danger posed by a long-term build up of chemicals in the body. Davis told committee members that if their blood was tested they would find a "horrific mix of chemicals." That mix, he added, would not be just herbicides, but many of the different chemicals encountered in today's environment.

The concerns are particularly important for children and nursing mothers who are more susceptible. "It is better to be safe than sorry," he said. "There is a lot of concern out there in the community. It's not just Michael and I."

Whaling, a former board member of the New York Coalition to Alternatives to Pesticides, described pesticides as an "avoidable risk." Doubleday Field is "America's ball field" and could set a national example by switching to an organic turf management program, he said. Additionally, as the first community on the Susquehanna River the village "should free itself from chemicals on its lawns and playing fields."

The use of chemicals, he said, is inconsistent with the field's history and is not in the long-term best interest of those who play on the field.

Taugher asked Whaling to provide Harris with the information he had in regard to organic turf management. "If there's a way it can be done, we'd would take a look at it," Taugher said, and added that he considered himself a gardener and had used organic lawn care products in the past and thought they had "worked great."

Sports Center Director Brad Feik said Wednesday that no one had approached him with information concerning alternative turf management techniques, but that be had obtained a great deal of information on the Internet, including some from the New York Coalition to Alternatives to Pesticides.

The center already had in place some of the management practices suggested in the material and they are currently reviewing other, herbicide-free options for their playing fields.

Feik said he too would be happy to meet with Davis and Whaling to discuss alternatives.