The Soundview wading pool at 1590 NW 90th won’t open this summer. Seattle Parks and Recreation is being forced to close eleven wading pools this summer, and modify the open dates for eight others. New federally mandated safety improvements require that owners of pools and spas install new drain covers and second anti-entrapment systems to protect swimmers from getting caught in pool drains. Because of the demand for the materials and skilled labor, there are delays nation-wide for installation. Nearby, the wading pool at Green Lake Park will open on June 20th and the Wallingford Playground pool will open July 1. The water spray feature at Ballard Commons Park is already open.
Soundview wading pool closed all summer
those regulations shouldn't count for wading pools.
I'm sure lots of kids have been sucked against the drain and perished in 6 inches of water–NOT.
this stinks.
The danger is not only getting stuck and drowning, a child can sit on a drain creating a vacuum and get disemboweled. That can happen in any amount of water.
Seriously? Has that been documented? I'm skeptical. The suction required to produce such a drastic result seems well beyond the capacity of your typical wading pool drain.
But it sounds like a great scene idea for Saw VI, or whatever the hell number they're up to now…
“Abigail Taylor of Edina, also 6, sat on an uncovered drain in a country club's wading pool, and its suction tore out most of her small intestine. Abigail survived, but may require a feeding tube for the rest of her life.”
Yes, it happens. You can probably find several old 60 Minutes or 48 Hours (as well as googling it).
When was this pool ever open?? I can't recall ever seeing it filled on a weekend.
The regulation is not for protection from drowning, it's because the suction on those things are so strong that children are getting eviscerated. This law has been a long time coming. Just think about your kid being sucked inside out by one of those things. I read all about it in a book called “Three cases”, or something like that about 3 law cases that John Edwards wrote.
That is such a shame. We spend a ton of time there after work/school, and my daughter's daycare walks over there all the time during the summer. I wonder why they can't just empty the pool water once all the kids are out of it?
ok so it happens. rarely, but it happens.
so, despite our high unemployment rate, we can't find a skilled laborer to install this for one year? that part is the real joke. I could probably train a monkey to install a drain.
It's probably more they couldn't find someone willing to go through the city's byzantine bidding/vendor approval process for the work. Heck, I know of 3 plumbers who live within walking distance of that park.
I'm sad that Soundview wading pool will not be open. It is a wonderful, creative little park. It's too bad that they cannot put a domed grated cover over the drains while waiting for the repair.
That aside, as an FYI to parents and dog owners, they chlorinate the water at the Ballard Commons water park–so if your child or your pet needs a drink, get it from the water fountain!
Lawyers, guns and money. All it takes, in a country of some 350 million people, is one child harmed to shut EVEYTHING down. Hello Nanny state. Hello trial lawyers. Goodbye freedoms. Ever stop to think that we're all just too stupid to run our own lives, and we need more rules/ regs? More lawyers/trials? Who wins here? Not “the children”. “No skilled labor” eh? More stupid rhetoric. Why is it they're shutting down DMV places etc and treating us all like little children? Must be those evil Republicans that run everything around here then? Time for a protest march for “the children” and their pools.
Ridiculous!!! It was bad enough that the pool wasn't open on weekends when working folk could take advantage of it too. But now, not at all??? I agree – put a dome on it. Throw some work at a plumber or handyperson already. Create some jobs for lifeguards this summer. The economy needs it!
Here's a fundamental difference in the belief in people's better nature. I trust that most people will take into account other's safety and well being most of the time, but there are enough that are either too stupid or too greedy that we need to police them into doing the right thing. Chinese grain dealers will spike entire shipments with toxic amounts of melamine so that it fools the chemical test to show that it has a high level of protein. They make a few bucks more, and my dog gets poisoned and dies. Milk for baby formula gets the same treatment and tens of thousands of kids are now sick for life.
I'm glad that there are regulations and people looking out for us. Without them you'd have children in sweatshops spewing toxic waste to save a few pennies on the bottom line.
BTW, You could just as easily say they're shutting down the DMV offices because Tim Eyman and the other libertarians have forced tax cuts.
It's too bad that the pool will be closed, and it does sound a little silly that they can't source the parts and labor to do the fix this year, but it's hardly the end of the world.
i'm sure it has more to do w/ the parks aqautics dept. being significantly underfunded this year than it does with anything else. the drain is just a convienent excuse.
With all of the lawers drooling and lawsuits waiting you can't just have a handyman install the drain cover… You need an architect to show that you installed it properly. It's going to cost us around $1500 to have a pool and hot tub done. Otherwise you're just asking for a lawsuit from someone.
There's the cheap way and the right way to do something. The cheap way usually isn't that cheap in the long term when you have to pay to have it redone or fixed a few times.
A civil engineer, maybe. But not an architect.
I have the paperwork right here, it requires an engineer/architect signature AND seal of approval.
One comment on the 'lawyers are teh suck' attitude…remember a few years ago when the news was full of these reports about how all these doctors were hanging it up because they couldn't afford the malpractice insurance? The stories all pointed to the lawyers as the cause, and were pretty good at getting a bunch of states to put caps on what victims could sue for. The end result is that the malpractice insurance in those states hasn't changed and now legitimate victims of bad doctors and companies that kill and maim for simple greed are completely screwed.
There needs to be a balance between the threat of lawsuit to keep companies honest and the ability to live a life. Don't get swept up in the BS that teh lawyers have ruined it for everyone.
BTW, I'm not a lawyer and I've never sued anyone. I do appreciate living in a society where I can trust that I won't be poisoned or maimed so someone can make an extra .001% profit.
If I were your neighbor I'd appreciate knowing that your hot tub and pool wasn't going to collapse and flood my basement. Get it done right.
There is another wading pool in Ballard…that seems to be little known – there is hardly anyone ever there and it's lovely and shady. This is the wading pool at Gilman Park (http://www.seattle.gov/parks/wadingpools_detail…) but the city site didn't specify if it would be open or closed this summer).
Anyone know about the wading pool at Gilman Park?
According to the Phinneywood blog, it will be closed all summer as well.
Hardly! If all it took was one child being harmed cars would have been banned ages ago. Amazes me that a couple of kids get hurt in a drain and that becomes a big deal while we do next to nothing to deal with the number 1 killer of children. Over 500 children are injured in car crashes every single day yet there's no rush to tighten up the requirements to get a drivers license or increase the penalties for causing a crash. Yeah, that makes sense.
I guess you could think of it this way, cars and transportation are considered necessities in the modern world while wading pools and child eviscerating drains are not. It's impossible to remove all dangers from life, but it is possible to remove the smaller easier to fix ones, like modified drain covers, cribs that are poorly designed, etc.
Cars have gotten a lot safer over the last few decades, it's the drivers who haven't.
It seems everytime you post there is a tinge of skepticism. You should research before you reply. I know of two cases off the top of my head (Omaha, and Minneapolis) where disembowlment occured. One died and one survived with permanent damages.
I agree cars are a necessity, no argument there and I own a car. I'm not advocating for some sort of naive car-free world.
Problem is have you looked at car accident rates for the USA and compared them to accident rates in other countries?? Europeans have 20-30% fewer accidents for the same number of miles driven. Heck, the German autobahn is considerably safer than I-5 despite the fact that people routinely drive well in excess of 100MPH. It's not acceptable to simply say “there's nothing that can be done to make driving safer” when it's very clear other countries have figured out ways to do it.
Bottom line is people don't know how to safely drive in this country. A lot of this is due to the fact that getting a license in this country is regarded as a birthright and the tests are complete jokes. If we made the tests more difficult and increased fines you'd see fatality rates go down. As it currently stands over 40,000 people are killed each year by cars and another 2.5 million are injured. You might think that's just the cost of doing business but I wonder if you'd feel the same way if it was your child who was killed by a motorist who couldn't be bothered with paying attention while behind the wheel.
Anybody up for asking parks how much it'd cost to have it done this summer? and… if they'd staff it with the required life guard if we did raise the funds?
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