Oval cleanup from Michigan weekend could cost Ohio State as much as $30,000, according to the Department of Physical Facilities.

Jim Stevens, associate vice president of physical facilities, said the estimated total clean-up will cost the university between $20,000-30,000. He said two events in particular caused damage to the large green space at the center of campus: an attempt to break the world record for largest pillow fight the Wednesday prior to gameday and the annual undergraduate jump into Mirror Lake on the following Thursday.

“If you go down there you’ll see we had a lot of turf damage,” Stevens said. “We actually had to bring plows in to plow the mud.”

Kevin Wagner, director of Roads and Grounds, said the university spent close to $2,100 cleaning up after the Mirror Lake jump. This included small repairs to the stone retaining walls around the lake, and hauling of 25 trash bags full of clothing, bras, underwear, shoes and beverage containers.

Wagner said OSU plans to use private contractors to repair damage to sod near Browning Amphitheater and repair missing stones on walls at the edges of sidewalks near Mirror Lake. Plans are to replace the current set-stone with sturdier concrete.

Wagner said an initial bid from independent contractors had a price tag of $10,000, which included masonry work, lawn care, seeding and fertilization. Additional upkeep by physical facilities after contractors are done would be another $1,000-2,000.

“It’s all event driven and weather driven,” Wagner said of the total cost for repairs. “If everything goes right, it would probably be about $15,000.”

Wagner said he understood the students’ need for large events, but said the result is an Oval that will look bad throughout the winter until the lawn has time to grow.

“You can’t do anything until the spring,” Stevens said. “This late in the year, there aren’t many people selling sod and you can’t spread grass seed because it won’t germinate.”

Stevens said no money is budgeted by physical facilities for events like the Mirror Lake jump.

“We don’t put aside money for spontaneous events because, frankly, it’s vandalism,” Stevens said.

“We don’t want to discourage people from having fun. That’s not our intent at all,” said physical facilities spokesman David Sweet. “There’s always a few individuals who do something stupid. We realize that this is a very small number of students.”

One solution Wagner said he suggests is moving the pillow fight away from the South Oval.

Leah Michalos, a senior in criminology and English and co-chair of the pillow fight for Mortarboard, said her organization plans to make the pillow fight an annual tradition. She said straw was already laid down on the Oval when her organization was preparing for the fight.

“The South Oval was already pretty muddy and torn-up to begin with,” Michalos said. “At the time it wasn’t an issue because we weren’t expecting the weather to turn out the way it did.”

Ashlee Gajus, a senior in philosophy, is one of thousands of undergraduates who jumped in Mirror Lake that night. She said although the experience was fantastic, compromises could be made to make students more accountable.

“The best method I can think of would be a call for student volunteers,” Gajus said. “If they would have said ‘Hey, bring a trash bag,’ I probably would have done that.”

Alan Overholser, a senior in history who also jumped, said an additional fee should be added onto student bills to help fund the cost for such events since he sees no way they can be stopped.

“It’d be kind of hard to keep them from jumping in,” he said. “It’s just going to happen anyway.”