COVID-19 cancels pool season in one Kansas City area town. Will the rest do the same?
Public pools are set to open over Memorial Day weekend, but will they?
Parks and recreation officials across the metro are discussing whether they can during the coronavirus pandemic.
Chlorinated pools are safe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, officials in Independence pulled the plug on the city’s Adventure Oasis Water Park this year.
“Closed — see you 2021 season,” says a message on the park’s website.
In all the uncertainty over how long stay-at-home-orders will last, it became clear the park wouldn’t be able to open as scheduled over Memorial Day weekend, said Mayor Eileen Weir.
And, with the financial hit the city’s budget has taken during the coronavirus outbreak, Weir said the city “just can’t afford” to hire the army of seasonal employees needed to run the park.
The water playground — with slides, a lazy river, water cannons, fountains and pools — is busy with exercise classes like aqua yoga, parties and special events such as twilight swims that attract 35,000 to 40,000 visitors each summer.
City officials didn’t want to keep those workers, or patrons who have already bought season passes, in limbo. Refunds are underway.
“So as this started to look like it was going to continue for a longer period of time than maybe what we had originally anticipated, we just made the decision that we would not open at all for the season,” said Weir, who refers to this as a “tough decision” in an announcement on the water park’s website.
In other cities, decisions about whether to open pools are still pending.
Kansas City Parks and Recreation has not yet decided whether to open its spray grounds, aquatic centers and public pools over Memorial Day weekend as planned, spokeswoman Leslie Alford said this week.
In Overland Park, city officials will discuss the 2020 season for the city’s five outdoor pools on May 6, said interim director Bryan Toben.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment does not set specific guidelines for public pools, said spokeswoman Kristi Zears. “But as with everything, it will be dependent upon how things look at that time and what recommendations are in place from the CDC.”
The CDC says on its website that there is “no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread to humans through the use of pools, hot tubs or spas, or water playgrounds.”
Proper operation, maintenance, and disinfection — with chlorine and bromine, as an example — “of pools, hot tubs or spas, and water playgrounds should inactivate the virus that causes COVID-19,” the CDC says.
Kansas City’s parks and rec department is trying to figure out what that means for its freshwater spray grounds.
“The water is pumped out, and then it goes straight to the storm drain. So a lot of our spray grounds are constant fresh water,” said Alford. “But we don’t have any idea what could be spread. There’s a lot to take into consideration.”
Alford said any decision about opening city pools probably won’t be made until after May 15, when stay-at-home orders are set to expire, for now.
“I don’t see us having anything determined for a week or two,” Alford said. “There’s concerns about everything. We have a lot of people that we have to be careful about. Safety is our number one priority whenever we do anything.”
The CDC’s concern is not necessarily with the water but what could happen outside the water in this era of social distancing, when members of the public are advised to stay at least six feet away from their fellow man.
Independence officials worried about that, too.
“The logistics of trying to maintain and enforce social distancing, in that type of setting where we have lots of families who use the facilities, a lot of senior citizens who use it for exercise … felt to be nearly impossible,” the mayor said.
When the announcement went out that the water park’s season had been canceled, the city fielded questions about whether it was safe to open up neighborhood pools around town, even backyard pools.
Weir echoes the CDC’s guidance. “We don’t have any reason to say that’s not safe. That doesn’t seem to be a way to contract or spread the coronavirus,” she said.
“We have told them if they have a community pool and can maintain social distancing, there’s no reason why we would tell them at this point they can’t open.”
While federal health authorities sing the praises of the health benefits of swimming “and other water-related activities,” the CDC cautions that while there is ongoing community spread of the virus, “there should be appropriate care taken both in and outside the pool, to protect yourself and others.”
For pool users, that means keeping that six feet of space away from others at the pool, not clustering in groups larger than 10 and washing your hands with soap and water, “especially after going to the bathroom, before eating and after blowing your nose.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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