A soccer league's plans to install artificial turf at Arbolitos Sports Field appear to have run into a problem.

A report prepared by city staffers on the Poway Youth Soccer League's request to install the turf has concluded that there is a "strong probability" that the fields would be flooded during the life of the turf, possibly voiding its warranty and leaving the city with a replacement cost of more than $1 million, and creating water-quality concerns.

The City Council is scheduled to discuss the league's request on Jan. 5.

Staff members have also recommended that the council authorize $20,000 to complete studies on the feasibility of the league's request for lighting at the fields.

Poway City Councilman Jim Cunningham said the decision by city staffers not to back the league's request for artificial turf doesn't mean it's a dead issue.

"For me to fully support the staff's recommendations, I've got to do more work," Cunningham said last week. "I'm taking those concerns very seriously, but like decisions that go forward, the decision to stop the project has to have as much review and thought and research as necessary."

Poway Youth Soccer League President Robert Waldon asked the City Council in October to consider lights and artificial turf at the field, which is at 14401 Pomerado Road near Abraxas High School.

A 2005 city study identified a need for more practice fields, and Waldon told the council that lights and artificial turf at Arbolitos would help address that need by providing fields that could be used after sunset and year-round. The field is closed for four to six weeks each summer to allow grass to regrow.

The league has 1,500 members with 90 recreational teams and 34 competitive teams that share fields with Poway Pop Warner, lacrosse and rugby teams. At the October meeting, Waldon submitted a petition signed by 429 supporters for lights and artificial turf.

The league's request has its detractors. Homeowners near the field said they remembered how lights on the field spilled into their homes in a 1998 test.

Waldon, who could not be reached to comment on the city staff's recommendation last week, said in October that technical advances in lighting could prevent the spill-over experienced by neighbors in 1998.

The staff recommendation is for a more sophisticated study than the earlier test, which involved setting up temporary lights at the field. Under the new proposal, a three-dimensional computer model would show how the terrain and vegetation would be affected by different levels of lighting.

Another study would determine how the longer days on the field would affect sound and traffic in the neighborhood.

The staff recommended against artificial turf because of possible flooding and water-quality issues.

The field was designed to also function as a detention basin that would hold water and reduce the threat of flooding in the neighborhood during heavy rains.

Besides voiding the warranty on the turf, which Waldon said in October would cost about $1.1 million, the staff report found that water running off the flooded synthetic field raised significant environmental concerns.

Call staff writer Gary Warth at 760-740-5410.