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The East Jessamine soccer field off Wilmore Road was closed last fall after E. coli contamination was found near the bleachers. The field has been closed again this spring after new grass did not take root before games were played. (Photo by Jonathan Kleppinger / March 28, 2012) |
The East Jessamine soccer field is closed for the second time this school year after problems with new grass.
In August, high levels of the bacteriaE. coliwere found in standing water in the soccer complex off Wilmore Road that hosts teams from East Jessamine High School and East Jessamine Middle School. A new French drain was installed and some new sod was laid, but the field was used this spring before the Bermuda grass had taken root.
“It just hadn’t rooted enough, and unfortunately, we had a team on there that went on and played — with (maintenance director) Shirley (Smith’s) permission — and caused a lot of uprooting of the newly sodded turf there,” superintendent Lu Young told the Jessamine County Board of Education at a work session Monday. “That rendered it unplayable for the remainder of this spring’s middle-school soccer season.”
Five middle-school games will be moved to the high-school football field, Young said, and a landscape company will come in to do a full assessment of the field and the drainage capabilities and make recommendations for any repairs. She told the board she didn’t want the facility to be a “problem-child” field.
“My concern is that we’ve had two back-to-back incidents with that field, so I want to make sure we get a good assessment of it and make sure it’s going to be viable and that all the remediation that happened (in the fall) has gone the right direction and it’s going to be in good shape in the fall,” Young said Tuesday.
Some high-school games were moved to West High’s soccer field in August while the East field was closed. The area contaminated byE. coliwas between the field and the home bleachers.
