S. Tahoe officials: SnowGlobe did not damage ball field

By Kathryn Reed

Jessie Jorgensen is running all around the soccer field by Lake Tahoe Community College. She does this weekly.

Right after the New Year’s weekend SnowGlobe music festival the toddler enjoyed finding trinkets like piercings and necklaces. Now it’s mostly leftover confetti that she scampers over.

Jessie and her dad, Pete Jorgensen, come out to the community ball fields so the little one can run around. They live on the other side of Al Tahoe Boulevard.

The elder Jorgensen on Sunday points to how the sides of the field are a brighter shade of green than the playing area. After nearly a decade of wear-and-tear, this would be expected. But Jorgensen and others say SnowGlobe substantially added to the fading of the artificial turf.

Bob Aaron, another South Lake Tahoe resident, calls the damage done to the fields by SnowGlobe as “unrepairable” and wants to know who is going to pay for it.

South Lake Tahoe, which owns the field, acknowledges confetti is still embedded in the turf.

“The confetti was the worst. That was an ill-conceived idea,” Stan Sherer, community services director, told Lake Tahoe News. He added that the promoters were told not to use confetti, but did so anyway.

Aaron told Lake Tahoe News the field is riddled with cigarette butts and burns.

On April 22, Lake Tahoe News saw one butt in the field – though not every inch was scoured.

Sherer, who was inspecting the field Monday, said he sees adult soccer players smoking on the field and sidelines all the time.

“The biggest problem from SnowGlobe was the gum,” Sherer said.

A few globs are visible, as are remnants from stickers that got stuck to the artificial grass.

Sherer said a substance would be applied to those spots by hand. Inmates from the nearby jail will be working on the field – so it’s free labor for the city.

The other foreign object Lake Tahoe News found was what looked like a round battery.

The city’s belief is the music festival did not do irreparable harm, nor did it affect the playability of the field. Already the infill has been screened and reraked. It’s time to play ball, according to Sherer.

This field is used nearly every day or night when snow is not covering it.

“The field is aging. It already exceeded its life expectancy,” Sherer said. “The only thing that helps is that it is shaded so much. The UV breaks down that field. And it’s more pronounced at altitude.”