Ball games at EPCAL uncertain

Four new ball fields built as part of the 62-acre town park in Calverton may sit unused for another season, unless town officials can get the county health department to agree to the temporary use of portable toilets at the site this year.

The town doesn’t have the money to finish the $1.3 million project, originally conceived in 2004, Supervisor Sean Walter said in an interview. 

“Finishing the ballfields is not an option until we get out of this hole that we’re in,” Walter said. “We cannot continue to add debt to the town.”

The four fields have been built, including clay infields, grass outfields, backstops and irrigation systems. But they lack restroom facilities, lighting and parking.

Councilman George Gabrielsen, who was co-chairman of the town’s recreation advisory committee, which originally proposed the new park six years ago, hopes the town will find a way to get the fields in use for the spring season, using portable toilets, temporary parking and scheduling only day games.  Even on that limited basis, he says, the fields will provide much-needed relief for the over-crowded schedule of teams that use the Stotzky Park fields. 

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But the stop-gap plan for 2010 depends on the county health department’s willingness to play ball and allow the use of portable lavatories. The health department had previously said the town must connect the park’s restroom facilities to the Calverton sewer district, which the town said was cost-prohibitive. The county eventually agreed to allow the town to use septic systems for the restrooms for five years. But at this point, the town doesn’t have the money to build septic systems either, according to the supervisor.

The fields were phase one of a larger plan for a $15 million public park at EPCAL developed by the recreation advisory committee in 2004.  The project has faced many obstacles since its inception, including the county requirement for a sewer connection, the state department of transportation requirement that the town install sidewalks along Route 25 before it would grant the town permission to create an entrance onto the state road, and the Pine Barrens Commission asserting jurisdiction over the project. Riverhead took the commission to court over that dispute and won.

Meanwhile, as town officials work their way through all the red tape and red ink, players and teams are still looking for a home. The teams include the Riverhead Tomcats of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, which, in its first season last year, had to use the Riverhead High School baseball field.