Students throwing Frisbees or sunbathing on the grassy expanse of the Oval are typical sights on a sunny day in spring quarter. The view has changed slightly this year.

Two sections of the Oval have been fenced off due to grass damage, leaving certain patches completely void of grass.

The poor condition of the grass is caused by the drought from last year, said Jim Stevens, vice president of Physical Facilities.

“There was rain in June but none in September,” he said.

The heavy traffic of students also hindered the damaged grass from growing.

The two areas have already been seeded, but it is necessary to fence them off in order to give the grass a chance to grow without being walked on, Stevens said.

“Everybody came back to school and still used the Oval,” he said.

The fences will stay up for one to two months, depending on how quickly the grass grows.

“Hopefully we will have hearty grass so everyone can be on it as much as possible,” Stevens said.

An irrigation project is being implemented so that that OSU will be able to maintain a healthy and attractive environment.

“The original cost of the project was $1.243 million, but that has probably changed dramatically,” said John Mott, superintendent of recreational sports grounds and campus irrigation.

The goal of the project is to install the irrigation system and to rebuild walkways.

“We need to bring in irrigation,” Stevens said. “We never have any luck with Midwest droughts.”

The irrigation project would install a connection to a large water line, which would disperse water through sprinkler heads. The sprinkler heads would be placed throughout the Oval. The sprinklers would be part of a computerized system that Mott would control.

“It’s a very efficient system,” he said.

The computerized system would control the irrigation system for the entire campus.

The project is expected to be complete in spring 2004 at the latest, Mott said.

The grass that was planted is a regular turf grass, made up of a mixture of bluegrass, rye grass and fescue.

“It seems at Ohio State there is always something that full access is not granted to, and this is just another one of those things,” Adam Altman, a senior in turf grass science, said of the limitations on the Oval.

“It has to be done sooner or later; otherwise the Oval could turn into a hard dirt surface with little grass present,” he said.