Sinking fields being studied at Salt Lake
By Shayna Coleon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Sections of playing fields at Salt Lake District Park have been sinking since the facility opened 15 years ago, creating an eyesore at best and a safety hazard at worst.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Conditions have gotten so bad at times that coaches and players have filled in the depressions. Two years ago, a soccer team filled in a depression on the mauka field that had deepened to 2 feet, said Alex Ching, a recreation director at the park.
Test drillings at Salt Lake District Park seek the cause of depressions in the playing fields. Once the cause is pinpointed, the city will hire a contractor to fix the problem.
"It was really hard to play on the field before they had the dirt delivered," Ching said.
Limited money has kept the city from fixing the fields sooner, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa. But now, operating under a $200,000 city contract, Anbe, Aruga and Ishizu Architects Inc. is test-drilling the sinking areas of the 148-acre park to try to pinpoint what's wrong, Costa said.
The problem primarily affects the park's two makai and mauka fields, used for soccer, football and baseball.
City officials said the depressions pose no safety hazard. They "are not something you would trip on," Costa said.
But Milton Tateishi, assistant baseball coach for the Lakeside Pony Team, said the problem is serious enough that he's been making repairs since March, when the season started. He said he has been watering down an uneven area behind the third-base line at the makai baseball field to prevent injury.
"When the dirt in that area is dry, it cracks, and when they play a game, the dirt shifts," Tateishi said. "These conditions make the balls just bounce different, and they bounce bad.
"If a ball drops there, you'll hear this thud, it's harsh and it would sound different if it fell on a level area. You can get physically hurt from these bad bounces."
Preliminary results from the test drillings show that the original materials used as foundation go down 45 feet below the fields, and the fill is not strong enough to support the weight of the dirt.
"The materials they used to fill the foundation with, back then, had no compression strength to hold everything up, and that's why there are depressions in the ground," said Edmund Chang, senior vice president at Anbe, Aruga and Ishizu. "The original fill may have been just materials they dumped at the site for storage, so we really won't know the exact reason of the sinking until we know the makeup of materials in the soil."
Costa said bids for a construction company to fix the depressions will not be sought until the soil samples are analyzed. That should be done by the end of July, Chang said.
But Tateishi said the city should fix the problems as soon as possible.
"I understand that the city is very busy, and I don't want to bother them," Tateishi said. "But if they could just level out the areas or cut a baseline path, and make the necessary actions to keep the field safe for the kids."
Chang said temporary fixes may be the way to go.
"It would be more economical for the city to continue what they are doing right now," Chang said. "When they have a depression they should just add some dirt and level it since they are already doing it. It works for a short time."
Reach Shayna Coleon at scoleon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8004.
