Some questions were raised when the possibility of installing a splash pad at Norwayne Field was brought up at Monday night’s North Judson Town Council meeting.
Councilman James Young told members that in an effort to find something that could draw young families to the area while simultaneously giving local kids something to do, a few town officials recently met with a representative from the company Vortex Aquatic Structures.
He said the options they looked into were similar to Valparaiso’s splash pad.
He explained, “It’s flush mount so we wouldn’t have fixtures sticking out of the ground. It’d be more like one solid fixture they would touch, it would kick the splash pad on, they could go play in it for three or four minutes and it would switch itself off until someone touched it again.”
He added that this type could be equipped with LED lights that could flash in different colors. Young said that would be a nice addition during events that are held at Norwayne in the evening.
Young said there were two different flush mount versions that the representative provided them with. The first version would pump 74.5 gallons of water per minute and the equipment would cost around $41,000. The second version presented to the council would pump 69 gallons of water per minute and cost $61,000.
There were other options that would allow the recirculation of water. Those would cost more up front but could potentially save money in the long run since the water would be recycled.
Councilman John Rowe said the proposed placement is an unused slab of concrete that sits behind the library building currently. Town Superintendent Marshall Horstman noted that there isn’t a sewer line near there, so additional work would need to be conducted in order to hook it up to the nearest line on Keller Avenue.
Members mentioned that currently, there are North Judson residents who venture out of town to use these types of structures elsewhere, so there is an apparent appeal.
They also noted that grant funding is available for these types of projects so those funds could potentially be used for installation costs or maintenance. Councilman Young added that he’s also spoken with a few different businesses who expressed an interest in funding the project.
One of the main concerns raised was about how much money it would cost to increase water usage and the impact it would have on residents. Members asked Superintendent Horstmann to run some figures to see what the long-term effects would be.
Additionally, members thought it would be a good idea to have a representative from Vortex come to a meeting to provide some additional information and to answer any questions that town officials or citizens may have.
Officials are still in the preliminary stages of considering this possibility and nothing is set in stone. They will soon be considering the budget for 2019 so they will be looking into the feasibility of such a structure and whether or not this could be tackled next year or if it would have to wait.
No official actions were taken Monday night but the topic will be revisited in future meetings.
