Vandals carve up soccer fields

WASILLA -- Soccer fields at the Alcantra Recreational Facility, scheduled to open next year after 18 months of construction, were permanently damaged by vandals over the weekend.

Two vehicles raced across the length of the fenced complex, cutting tight turns that left deep gouges in the turf. Those responsible evidently used a bolt cutter to open a gate, which was secured with double locks and chains, said Warren Templin, a borough parks and recreation specialist.

The soccer fields, adjacent Little League baseball diamonds and a two-mile paved trail were built with a $985,000 bond passed by Mat-Su voters in 2000. Templin called the soccer fields the nicest in the borough but said they will forever show scars of the crime, which was discovered Monday morning by staff members at Larson Elementary School across the street.

"It'll never be the same," Templin said. "It never totally heals. There'll always be that little hump."

Strips of turf 8 and 10 feet long were torn off. Ruts are 4 inches deep in some places. Templin said the immature grass was particularly susceptible because it hadn't established a strong root system.

Vandals left a total of 16,000 feet of tire tracks on the fields.

Borough employees were busy Tuesday filling the ruts with dirt. They'll reseed the damaged areas next spring at a cost of $5.50 per pound for 900 pounds of seed, Templin said. That expense is in addition to new topsoil and workers' time to rehabilitate the fields.

Templin estimates that repairs probably will delay the fields' opening for a month or two from the normal soccer starting date next spring.

He said the tracks appear to be from a truck or SUV as well as a smaller vehicle. Alaska State Troopers photographed the larger vehicle's tread where it left dirt on an asphalt parking lot. Anyone with information about the incident is encouraged to call troopers at 745-2131.

Templin has one possible theory about who's at fault. He recently asked some men in their late teens or early 20s not to hit golf balls on the soccer fields because lost balls damage mowers' blades. He suggested another location for them to practice, and believes they might have been upset about that.

Templin shook his head as he surveyed the damage Tuesday.

"We've been babying it all this time," he said.

He recalled another instance of vandalism at Big Lake Elementary during the past summer. In that case, someone broke every plastic head on an irrigation pipe system owned by the contractor building a sports field. Templin said it's ironic that vandalism -- probably by juveniles -- is often aimed at sports fields.

"I don't understand," he said. "We're doing it for them."