If you had any doubt that April is indeed the cruelest month, as the great poet T.S. Eliot wrote, just ask local soccer enthusiasts.

A few days before it was slated to reopen after being closed for nearly a year because of another flood, the John B. Lewis Soccer Complex got deluged again April 19-20.

It was an absolute heart-breaker.

More:Latest flood at Asheville 'JBL' soccer complex was 'substantial,' official says

Games were planned for April 22, as the contractor was putting the finishing touches on a $1.1 million cleanup, which involved removing silt and mud from last May's flood. The city — meaning taxpayers — picked up $875,000 of that cost, with the nonprofit that uses the facility paying $200,000.

It was just cruel, but it also looked worse than it was this time. I stopped by JBL Friday, and field 3 is already cleaned up and ready for action. Field 2 is not far behind.

Field 4 is a muddy mess, though, with about 3-4 inches of silt still on more than half the expanse. Field 1 has a much finer layer of soil on it that will have to be cleaned up.

On Friday, I met on Field 3 with Mike Rottjakob, executive director of the Asheville Buncombe Youth Soccer Association/HFC, the nonprofit that operates JBL. The turf we stood on was green and clean, with all the rubber pellets properly embedded in the base.

"This is the difference between letting the silt sit on the field for nine months and getting after it a few days after the flooding," he said.

Rottjakob is well aware that having a soccer complex adjacent to the flood-prone Swannanoa River means it's going to flood, especially as climate change continues unimpeded.

But he also wants to make the point that a cleanup with a skid steer and mechanized brushes, which the Astroturf company has been able to do, can be done quickly. And way more affordably — if the equipment is on hand and workers don't delay.

More:Boyle column: Should JBL Soccer Complex, so prone to flooding, be moved?

Rottjakob is also well aware that some city taxpayers are not too happy with the $1.1 million cleanup, like this gentleman who emailed me last week:

"How often are we taxpayers going to be asked to pony up $875,000 to repair these fields? Seems like trying to keep these fields open is more like throwing hundred dollar bills into the Swannanoa River. Why not admit the mistake of locating them next to a river that frequently floods and close ‘em down?"

It's a fair question, but it's also not that simple.

"I share the taxpayers' concerns about the out of control cost of the current clean-up project, but the idea that the city built this park in a flood plain, with the hopes that it just wouldn’t flood, makes no sense," Rottjakob told me via email. "In fact, flood mitigation work completed by the city in 2015, was designed to make the soccer fields flood more frequently to protect Biltmore Village."

He also points out that other city parks built in flood plains also require cleanups at times. The key is controlling those costs.

Rottjakob also noted that the new lease agreement ABYSA has with the city, which goes into effect July 1, "reduces the city’s exposure to a maximum of $50,000 per year for flood clean ups and is split with ABYSA up to the maximum of $50,000."

That's a "very reasonable" deal, he said, and I can't argue with that. I think Asheville's 90,000 or so residents wouldn't mind divvying that amount up to maintain a premier soccer facility.

"Our feeling is that if we can control the cost of cleanups by acting quickly, that JBL is still a great investment from a cost per user hour perspective," Rottjakob said.

Last year's flooding was epic, with nearly 10 feet of water and mud standing on the fields at one point. The city tried to secure FEMA funding for the cleanup, which resulted in months of delay.

By contrast, this month's flood brought about 4-5 feet of water onto the fields, and two fields are about ready to go.

While I'm not a soccer player or Asheville resident, I'm sympathetic to Rottjakob and all the soccer players out there. ABYSA and the ABASA adult counterpart program served almost 7,500 players in 2018 and hosted 12 weekends of tournaments that filled over 10,000 hotel room nights.

So it's not only a great asset for kids and adults, it's a nice little economic engine for the area.

But it is incredibly flood-prone.

Back in 2004, when epic hurricane remnants hit the mountains, JBL flooded while still under construction. That September the rains washed downstream the artificial turf, which had been sewn together but not attached to the underlying surface.

Officials switched gears, opting for a type of turf that could withstand flooding, a smart move.

The fields flooded again in the spring of 2013, leaving the familiar round of mud and debris that made the complex unusable. That cleanup took just a month and $51,000 in tax dollars.

I think city residents could live with that.

So there's that.

But there's also this: global warming and more severe storms. We set a record for rainfall in 2018, with almost 80 inches recorded at the airport.

Last year, federal scientists, including some based in Asheville, issued the third National Climate Assessment, which warned of extended droughts, fiercer wildfires, rising sea levels, and yes, heavier rains.

One of its authors was David Easterling, director of the National Climate Assessment Technical Support Unit, part of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, and a longtime mountain resident. Rains like those on the recent Friday may seem Biblical — we got more than 5 inches in six hours — but they might not really be all that exceptional in the future.

"Climate change has led to an observed increase in heavy precipitation events likely due, in part, to an observed increase in atmospheric water vapor because of warming of the atmosphere (a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor)," Easterling told me. "In the future, as the climate continues to warm, it is expected that heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent leading to more flooding."

The question becomes, Is JBL sustainable in this kind of watery world?

Some have suggested relocation, but good luck trying to find 10-20 acres of flat land away from a flood plain in the mountains. The cost would be astronomical, if you could find it.

Real turf fields likely would not stand up to the heavy usage, and they too would have to be cleaned after flooding.

The bottom line in the mountains is parks are often located by rivers and streams around here for a reason — they're prone to flooding and nothing else can go in there.

So, If ABYSA and the city can work out a program where cleanup equipment, which can easily be leased, is on hand, along with workers trained in using it, then I'd say yes, JBL is sustainable. Annual cleanups of $50,000-$100,000 are reasonable, in my opinion — the cost of doing business.

But if the city is going to try to secure FEMA funding and delay cleanups for nearly a year, then no, it's not.

As Rottjakob stresses, the longer the heavy mud and silt sits on the turf, the more difficult the cleanup.

"Time is the enemy," he said several times Friday.

And sometimes, bureaucrats have no sense of urgency.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com