SEQUIM — Too much of a good thing can be a challenge, Sequim parks-maintenance crews discovered this summer.
Sequim’s sports enthusiasts, especially soccer and football players, are thrilled with the city’s new ballfields and will show off the new digs during the Dungeness Soccer Tournament on Aug. 3-5.
However, having only two parks employees and two mowers to take care of 12 acres of playing fields as well as acres more of other parks — with more planned in the future — has added up to create a logistical nightmare for the city’s small park-maintenance department.
The employees will need a bigger mower, said Jeff Edwards, Sequim’s public works administration manager and parks coordinator.
“It’s great to have the playfields for the kids,” Edwards said, saying it keeps children off the streets and active in healthy activities.
“If we can’t maintain that, it goes to waste,” he said.
Currently, the city’s mowers each have a 4-foot-wide catch, meaning they can mow a strip of 4 feet of lawn at a time.
It takes 20 hours to cut the 12 acres of grass at the Albert Haller Playfields, which recently were built by Sequim Family Advocates at the Sequim Water Reuse Demonstration Park.
But soon, 4 acres at Keeler Park — and eventually an additional 4 to 7 acres on a parcel on South Third Street — will be added to the city’s inventory of “a domesticated weed cursed upon us by the British,” said Paul Haines, public works director.
It’s too much for the city’s current equipment and staffing, he said.
For now, the city is using stopgap measures, including borrowing Sequim School District employees and mowers, and has a request out for volunteers to come ride one of the two city-owned mowers.
For the long term, Sequim needs an oversize, tractor-size lawn mower like those used on golf courses, which can cut a swath of between 11 feet to 16 feet of grass per pass, Haines and Edwards agreed.
A larger mower would reduce employee hours devoted to cutting the fields to nearly a third of the current 20 hours, Edwards said.
That would free more hours for the parks employees to do other necessary maintenance tasks, including more grass-cutting at other parks and trash collection from park trash cans.
Such a mower would cost about $60,000, Haines said, adding that the city is researching how to acquire one.
On Wednesday, the Sequim School District loaned the city mowers and groundskeepers to help the city prepare fields for weekend sports events, but the loan is temporary.
The school district has its own acres of sports fields and lawns to keep trimmed, and if they share mowers, that cuts the life of the school district mowers, Edwards said.
Adding new playfields will help the school district with field maintenance, Edwards said, because the fields at the schools have been overused and beat-up, giving district groundskeepers only a short window to regrow grass.
“It’s going to take a lot of heat off the school fields,” Edwards said.
He noted that cycling through all of the fields will, in the long run, help everyone maintain their playfields.
Each sport also has a different standard for the grass: how long it can be allowed to grow before it interferes with ball play, he said.
Those interested in volunteering to help cut grass on the fields can phone public works at 360-683-4908.
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.