The Winamac Park Board continues to research the possibility of adding a splash pad at the Town Park.
Board members recently visited other local communities to look into the potential cost. Last week, town manager and board member Brad Zellers said the next step will be to check with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. “IDNR, I talked to them. They didn’t necessarily have a problem with that, but they did think it was an IDEM issue, also,” he explained. “So I think the first thing we ought to do is make sure it’s doable there, before we ask if people want it there.”
He explained that there are a few different options, when it comes to supplying the water. “You hook it to city water and you discharge it to the sewer; you use city water and you discharge it to the river – at that point, you’ve got to remove the chlorine from the water, so you’re going to have a discharge permit you’re going to have to have; or make a closed loop and you just circulate the water, chlorinate it, like you would a pool.”
That first option – using city water and sewer – would cost over $60,000 a year, according to Zellers. Board member Jon Chapman asked whether the town could save money by skipping chlorination. “I had make some inquiries several months ago, just to learn a little more, and I found it interesting that they had purposely mentioned that if there was fresh water that did not have chlorination, there were no guidelines from IDEM that we would have to follow,” he said. “And I kind of felt like that was a ‘Hey, here’s a way you might want to consider it,’ from IDEM to us. Maybe it wasn’t intended that way.”
Zellers agreed to discuss the issue with the Indiana State Department of Health. If it’s determined that a splash pad may be built in the Town Park, board members plan to conduct a survey, to gauge community support.
