By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

Baseball and boys lacrosse teams at Mahoney Middle School in South Portland no longer have a home field advantage. In fact, the team has no home field at all.

School Superintendent Suzanne Godin last week told the board of education the school’s field was off-limits because sinkholes have appeared on the field.

Godin said all activities have been banned from the field except for Mahoney’s physical education classes.

Godin said staff has started to fix the problem and will report back to the board when more information is available. 

“It was a city and an organizational safety decision,” said Assistant School Superintendent Steve Bailey.

City workers posted signs last last Friday to inform the field is closed except for permitted uses.

Greg Marles, director of buildings and grounds for the school system, inspected the 180,000-square-foot field May 3. 

“I did find sinkholes and some areas of depression where the field surface has dropped,” Marles said. One hole was 12 inches around and opened up to a cavern that was three feet in diameter and three feet deep.

He immediately marked the hole with 3-foot stakes. “Student safety is our number one focus,” he said.

Marles said he thinks the sinkholes are appearing because the field was built many years ago on a landfill. Material used to create the fill, including wood, is now breaking down and creating voids in the earth, he said.

The parks and recreation department has managed the problem, at least temporarily, by filling holes and depressions when they appear on the field.

Marles said sinkholes and depressions have appeared intermittently for several years at Mahoney.

“It seems to be expanding in frequency,” Marles said. “Now it’s grown with more and more frequency of holes showing up.”  

Mahoney Principal Kathy Germani said her staff has taken precautions to protect the health and safety of students in physical education courses.

“Our physical education people go out and check the field. I’m confident that my team here is aware of safety issues,” Germani said.

“We’re doing daily inspections to be able to use it for physical education classes,” Bailey said.

The number of physical education classes held on the field at Mahoney varies from day to day depending on weather, condition of the field and nature of the day’s activity.

Activities such as weightlifting are done inside and some such as the mile run are done outside, Germani said.

Instead of walking onto their own field next to Mahoney, baseball and lacrosse players will be bused to other locations in South Portland for games and practices.

“We have a tremendous transportation department. They’ve gone out of their way to accommodate us,” said Kevin Woodhouse, school department athletic director.

The baseball team will go to the high school and the lacrosse team will play and practice at Wainwright Fields on outer Highland Avenue, Woodhouse said.

The teams didn’t miss any practices or games because they were able to relocate to other available fields quickly with help from the parks and recreation department.

“We had good coordination between the recreation and school departments,” Woodhouse said. “We were able to resolve it quickly. The parks department came up with great options.”

Marles said the city’s parks and recreation department is not scheduling activities on the field and people must petition the school department to use it.

“In this case, we’re not granting any of those (petitions) because we can’t vouch for the condition of the field,” Marles said.

Russ Lunt, an equipment operator who has worked for the city for 32 years, said he saw problems when he mowed the field last summer. 

“I noticed it was in pretty bad condition,” Lunt said. “It was very uneven.”

Nobody knows when the field will be opened for all activities again.

Marles said the solution could be as simple as filling the holes and leveling the field or as drastic as excavating the soil, removing 50,000 cubic yards of fill and refilling the entire area.

“We need to get S.W. Cole to do an extensive study of what it would take to repair the field permanently,” Marles said. 

The study will determine what is below the ground and help identify a long-term solution for the sinkhole problem, Marles said.

The study will cost $2,400 and be paid from this year’s school budget, Marles said.

Rick Wright can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237 or news@inthesentry.com.