The Province announced this week the reopening of water recreational facilities such as outdoor splash pads, wading pools and swimming pools as part of Stage 2 openings, provided proper health and safety measures are in place.
The weather lately has not been conducive to splash pad activity, which is a good thing, because it is giving communities time to work out the logistics of reopening.
The municipalities of North Bay and Callander find they are not ready to open their splash pads at this point.
The stakes are too high if they get it wrong.
In North Bay, the city plans to reopen the Family of Rotary Splash Pad but not until it works out its operational plan.
“We expect it will be soon, but we are still working on how exactly we are going to operate it. As soon as the details are worked out by the Parks department, we will be providing an update,” explained North Bay communications officer Gord Young.
“It is typically not supervised so we will have to look into what kind of signage we’re going to have to place there. There are washroom facilities there, so we will have to look at whether or not the washrooms will be open and how often they’re going to be cleaned and those kinds of things. So that is what Parks is looking at right now.”
Callander Mayor Robb Noon said the issue was discussed at a meeting earlier this week, where concerns were raised about how the municipality planned to manage the splash pad with respect to social distancing.
“There is going to be all these children out there running around. How are we going to control the area? We don’t have the manpower like say North Bay or Toronto. So, our bylaw officers would have to be constantly out,” said Noon.
“You can ask people to social distance but then what do you do when they don’t comply? How are you going to monitor that situation? So, you have some people down there that are trying to social distance and some that are not following the rules as they should be. So how do you deal with all that?”
And of it is difficult trying to stop children from touching pieces of equipment.
“We have an activation switch which all the kids run to, so every 10 minutes it goes off and they all hit the same button. So, we decided instead of making another problem, at this moment in time we are not going to be opening ours.”
As with North Bay, there is a concern about public washrooms.
“And public works wanting to know how many times they would have to clean it. Who is going to be out there on the weekend? What notices do we have to post? How do you do all that and the logistics of it all? And how big of a group can you get together?”
Noon says the municipality will review the situation in another week.
“At this moment we’re getting the splash pad ready to go. We’re just waiting another week and we will revisit it then. It is a great economic tool for the businesses, so we did take into consideration the impact COVID is having on the local economy. This would be a great thing to have all people come down, but it is the other issues that we are more concerned with right now,” said Noon.
“Everything is changing so rapidly. The province is allowing more and more all the time. So that is our position right now. We’re just not doing it at the moment.”
