The Lawn Bowling Green outside of John D. Spreckels Center is finally undergoing a turf replacement project following delays caused by a lawsuit and storm damage.
The fungal issues, combined with the Jan. 22 deluge flooding the entire turf, resulted in the Lawn Bowling Green needing to be replaced.
The fungus, known as puffball mushroom fungus, grows on live tree roots, forming mounds and disrupting the surface of the lawn. Four Canary Island pine trees and one Torrey pine on the edge of the bowling green have provided roots for the fungal growth.
Four out of five Coronado City Council members voted in August 2023 to remove the trees due to the fungus, but a handful of residents, including one of the 2024 City Council candidates, Christine Mott, sued the city to keep the trees.
Bryan Pease, the lawyer on the case, wrote on his website that the lawsuit challenged the city’s failure to satisfy the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act and provide adequate public notice to the community.
The residents won.
A preliminary injunction was granted by the court which meant that Coronado couldn’t take any action against the trees until a trial could be held. Coronado decided to “withdraw all plans for the Lawn Bowling Green Turf Replacement Project, including the project’s tree removal permits,” according to Pease’s website.
As a result, the fungus is still there and, compounded by flooding, the turf condition has deteriorated.
With that rain event, it actually took the turf and sort of yanked it up off its foundation.
Berie Grobe
“With that rain event, it actually took the turf and sort of yanked it up off its foundation,” said Berie Grobe, the immediate past president of the Lawn Bowling Club. She’s been with the club since 2010.
The new project will not remove the trees, but will replace the old lawn with a similar turf. Initially, there were also plans for root barriers and a drainage pump system installation, but due to the lawsuit, those items have been removed from the scope of work, according to the project’s website.
“There were certain constituents of residents who were concerned that putting in a root barrier and a drainage system was going to damage or harm the trees,” said Jackie Lu, the principal architect of the project. “If the roots reach underneath the turf like it does today, eventually the mounds will come back. We’re hoping that it’ll stay flat for as long as possible.”
After the flooding, Grobe said the city realized that the insurance would kick in and they could replace the green.
Lu said that part of the reason this project took a while to get started after the flood was because of the negotiations the city had to go through with the insurance to make sure the replacement was covered.
Identical turf was no longer sold at the original company, so the city had to find a similar product that would be covered by the insurance.
Lawn bowlers wanted a green that would mimic the existing turf, so Grobe said the city actually organized trips to visit a couple different lawn bowling venues in Southern California. They eventually found a newer version of the current lawn at the Spreckels center.
The lawn installed in Coronado back in 2010 was a world-class championship green, so Grobe said this new green isn’t just about making lawn bowlers happy, but also about wanting to attract others in the southwest division to travel and play on it.
Originally, the turf had a 10-year life expectancy. It was installed in 2010 and in 2019, the mounds started appearing under the grass, later found to be puffball mushroom fungus. Several options were tested to get rid of the fungus, but none worked.
In 2023, the council talked about removing the trees and possibly replacing them with trees that would most likely not lend to more fungal growth.
A motion to remove all the trees was passed with a 5-0 vote.
However, Casey Tanaka, who was a council member at the time, revisited the issue a few weeks later after hearing backlash from the community about taking the trees down.
Another vote was taken and the motion still passed 4-1 to remove the trees, with Tanaka voting no.
A couple weeks after that, four Coronado residents filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that the city failed to satisfy the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act by cutting down the trees.
The lawsuit succeeded and the trees still remain on the property for the time being. The turf replacement project started Jan. 13 and is expected to be completed by April 28.
