Repeated pedestrian traffic on the North Campus quads is destroying turf and slowly killing historic trees, University officials said.

The problem, according to Grounds Director Dexter Adams, is soil compaction – a process that cuts off circulation to tree roots, weakening the tree and leaving it vulnerable to strong winds and other forces of nature.

“The ideal would be for (the North Campus quad area) to be lightly enjoyed by everyone,” he said. Instead, “it’s just beaten into submission.”

Gamedays account for the majority of the damage, Adams said, with the quads becoming an “encampment” for tailgaters. Grounds crews use machinery to aerate the soil and relieve compaction after home games, but Adams said the repeated process of compaction and aeration does damage to tree roots.

Contributing to compaction problems is the repeated wearing down of the fescue grass on the quads. Adams said tough turfs, such as the bermuda grass that grows on football fields, will not grow in heavily shaded areas such as North Campus.

Instead, grounds crews must rely on more destructible turf such as fescue, which cannot rebound as well from the toll of tailgating as turf on the Myers Quad and Herty Field, he said.

Scott Simpson, a campus master planner with the Office of University Architects, said architects and grounds officials have the compaction issue in mind and are hoping to start wrestling with possible solutions in the near future.

“It’s kind of a slow demise,” he said. “We’re kind of looking at what we need to do.”

Adams said grounds crews will continue to monitor the situation until the end of football season, when a more detailed solution can be worked out.

“My thinking is that it needs to be more than just the grounds director complaining,” he said. “What I’d love to see is some kind of a working group to take a look at it.”

Gameday Gameplan, a comprehensive plan for home football games largely engineered by the University Police Department, already protects much campus vegetation from irresponsible parking, Adams said. The North Campus quads would benefit from a gameday setup that makes tailgating less concentrated, he said.

“You don’t want to offend people. You’re glad that they’re enjoying it,” he said.

For the last 20 years or so, the University has planted a few trees on North Campus each year to replace dying trees, Adams said.

Grounds crews also are preparing to replace many North Campus sidewalks and install new ones where needed. They’ll also be restoring the so-called “White Way,” the series of lights from the Arch to Old College, which was given to the University by the class of 1914.

But the historic look of North Campus is just as dependent on its vegetation, Adams said.

“It’s just such a beautiful place. It just tears me up to see it just dirt,” Adams said. “We’re better than that.”