HANOVER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The rain was only adding insult to injury at the fields that span between Hanover Township and Sugar Notch, left damaged by trespassing ATV riders.
"Well, we were notified just this morning of some damage that happened to some of our soccer fields," said Terry Ostrowski, President and CEO of the Earth Conservancy. "So we came up here, this is on Earth Conservancy land, this is land that we allow both for use for soccer and for youth football."
One group is the Hanover Area Youth Soccer club.
"For some reason, anybody that's out on an ATV, once they see the flat land, they're out just saying, 'hey, let's rip up some doughnuts and just tear up the field,'" said Nick Griffin with the soccer club.
Folks at the Earth Conservancy tell Newswatch 16 that similar damage happened close to a year ago at one of the upper fields, and it cost about $5,000 to fix.
"We'll have to get in here, you know, fix fields up, get the ruts out, reseed the field, and more than likely, they won't be available for the start of the season for the kids to play," said Ostrowski.
The damage left behind doesn't stop at these fields.
"The gates are locked. What we found this morning was that the lower gate, which is locked, was actually cut with perhaps a Sawzall. So there was an intended effort to come in here. And then the upper gate was what the lock was stolen on that, so two gates were vandalized, essentially to get up here," added Ostrowski.
The soccer club has started a GoFundMe to raise money for lighting and security at these fields to prevent any more damage.
Anyone with information about how any of this destruction happened is asked to contact Hanover Township or Sugar Notch police.
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