The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) will soon present an update on its ongoing lawsuit in Massachusetts Land Court against the town of Oak Bluffs planning board over the board’s rejection of a special permit for a synthetic turf field at the high school.

An agenda item scheduled for Monday’s Feb. 6 MVRHS committee meeting at 6 pm under old/ new business will involve an “athletic field legal process update.” The most recent definitive information coming out of the litigation emerged during a status hearing, when an MVRHS attorney made it apparent that the school was banking the case on the so-called Dover Amendment.

The school has filed its summary judgment application stating that the zoning legislation of Oak Bluffs does not allow the planning board to deny a special permit; the planning board is working on its summary judgment application asserting that its authority was served out appropriately.

The Dover Amendment is a state law that allows properties with an educational component to bypass zoning bylaws for building projects that would typically require town permits. School officials maintain that the Oak Bluffs planning board didn’t have the legal authority to deny a special permit for the first phase of a comprehensive athletic campus overhaul. One central reason the planning board denied the special permit, according to the decision rendered by the board on May 4, 2022, states that the school field lies within a sensitive ecological zone known as a water resource protection overlay district.

The synthetic turf field was the hingepoint in the planning board’s resolve to deny the special permit for the first phase of the project — the centerpiece of the installation that would serve as the game field, and would receive the largest amount of usage. Following extensive testing of each specific synthetic turf component that would be implemented, independent environmental consultants concluded that the risks of certain chemicals being directly harmful to athletes or to the underground sole-source aquifer were so minor as to merit disregard.

However, small amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, were identified in several turf elements.

PFAS have caused a great deal of concern since environmental findings were released back in 2021. Most recently, state lawmakers began pushing a bill to tackle PFAS issuesand in May 2022, the Oak Bluffs board of health began considering a synthetic turf moratorium to prevent the spread of PFAS in town.