SEQUIM ­– With major donations of volunteer labor lined up, a group working to build 13 acres of playfields east of the city’s Water Reclamation Demonstration Park hopes to raise enough money to hit the ground grading before year’s end.

“Our hope is to break ground this fall if cash fundraising goes well,” said Craig Stevenson, the nonprofit Sequim Family Advocates president, who said the group needs to raise about $240,000.

“If not, we’ll wait until this spring.”

Stevenson said it would take about four months to build the playfields and a parking lot with at least 100 spaces, and complete a loop trail around the playfields that would provide sorely needed new space for youth soccer, flag football and lacrosse play — as well as festival and events grounds for the general public.

Stevenson said about 1,000 children are anxious to play on the new fields.

Overuse of Sequim School District’s existing fields has left them pockmarked with muddy spots and lumpy grass that are unsafe to play on, he said, and the constant use leaves the school district with little time to properly maintain the fields.

At times, Stevenson said, teams must practice on paved portions of the school grounds for lack of an available field.

“The school district [officials] are the real heroes of the town,” said Stevenson, who founded the youth flag football league that has capped out at 70 players for lack of field space to grow.

“They are doing the best that they can to keep the fields open, and they are continuing to allow us to use them.”

He pointed out that fields have had to be temporarily closed because they have taken a beating and have needed to recover from overuse.

Stevenson likened the difficult scheduling of fields to “hot-bunking” aboard a submarine, in which sailors sleep on the same tightly squeezed bunks in shifts.

He called the situation a “crisis” back in October 2008 when Sequim Family Advocates first formed.

Today, he said, use by junior soccer youths has doubled during the last seven years to 500 players, with additional soccer club use adding about 100 more.

Use is at its peak during the late afternoons Monday through Friday on fields near Helen Haller Elementary School, at Hendrickson Road near Sequim Middle School and near the high school baseball fields, he said.

“We don’t have the luxury of sitting tight, waiting for more than five years,” Stevenson said.

“We have to do something now.”

The group in May earned the Sequim City Council’s strong support.

It has passed the muster of a state Department of Ecology’s environmental impact review — or State Environmental Policy Act review, commonly called SEPA.

But the project is still opposed by neighbors west of North Blake Avenue who don’t want the playfields near their backyards.

Robert Mullen, who led the opposition, said he wanted an environmental impact study of the site conducted by an objective party.

Mullen garnered about 150 signatures of neighbors, mostly living west of the project.

He said he has made a last-ditch effort of contacting the state Department of Ecology, which oversaw the SEPA study of the project conducted June 3 through July 5.

With the project approved by the City Council and close to securing a construction permit, Mullen said: “There’s not much I can do about it. I can’t file appeal because the time has elapsed.”

Mullen said his concerns were mainly about how Bell Creek would be affected by construction of the fields.

“I was concerned about the area being polluted by Sequim Family Advocates when they do the construction,” he said.

He’s worried, he said, about nesting geese near the creek and bull trout habitat.

“I just think that whole thing is going to change the atmosphere of the whole place,” he said, adding that a number of neighbors he talked to voiced concerns about noise.

“The whole feel and quiet and serenity of the park is going to be changed.

“I was looking out for 150 people in the park that want to walk the park quietly,” he said.

The project contractually must be completed no later than November 2011, at which time Sequim Family Advocates will turn the playfields over to the city of Sequim to maintain in perpetuity.

Grass will be irrigated with water reclaimed from the city’s newly expanded, state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant.

Already, Lakeside Industries of Port Angeles, Primo Construction of Carlsborg and Sequim’s Clallam Co-op have committed work and supplies that will level the playfields and parking area, Stevenson said.

The in-kind labor is worth more than $200,000, he said.

“Now, we are shifting to our cash requirements,” Stevenson said, leaving about $240,000 to be raised.

Joe Irvin, city associate planner involved in the project, said the city was awaiting Sequim Family Advocates’ final building permit application draft.

“We gave them back some initial comments and are waiting for their revised plans,” he said.

The group needed a final stormwater and pollution-prevention program for construction and erosion control during the project.

City Parks Manager Jeff Edward said the permit should be ready next month.

“If they start in November, I am thinking then next fall it would be open to play on,” Edward said.

Ken Garling, president of the Junior Soccer League, who works at project donor Clallam Co-op, agreed that space is the biggest need for after-school youth outdoor sports in Sequim.

“Those fields are just getting really bad,” said Garling, who has long coached soccer and youth sports in Sequim and even played for the Sequim High School soccer team 20 years ago.

“They’re just not designed to be used by that many. Helen Haller fields are not usable.”

Tax-deductible donations can be made to the project by contacting Sequim Family Advocates at P.O. Box 2065, Sequim, WA 98382, or visiting www.sequimfamilyadvocates.org.

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsula dailynews.com.