A city council committee heard Monday that although there has been feedback from council and the public to keep the status quo at the city hall fountain, it will not be able to operate beyond 2019 with water levels as they are.
The fountain includes standing water and a report to the committee said, regardless of how deep the water is, it must meet the same criteria as every outdoor pool in the province.
“I can absolutely understand why people are attached to the water feature in front of city hall,” Iveson said. “In my perspective, we are not losing that even if we build what’s proposed. I think people might have got the impression that we were going to lose that entirely or that it wasn’t going to include the fountains.
“There was a lot of confusion about what was actually going to happen.”
Alberta Health Services expressed concerns about the wading pool, including flow rates at the drains within the pool that place a swimmer at risk of being trapped. The current design exceeds the requirement by 10 times.
All pools also must completely filter all of the water in the wading pool every two hours, but currently, the city fountain takes three hours.
WATCH: Big changes coming to iconic Edmonton wading pool
There are also concerns surrounding building codes. In order to be compliant, the city would need to build a permanent two-metre-high fence, drain the pool every night or provide 24-hour security, the sides and bottom of the pool must be white in colour and there would need to be washroom and change rooms built.
“We looked to the province, politically and at the bureaucratic level, to see if there was any way around this and there just isn’t,” Iveson said.
The city is now looking at three options for the water feature.
The first is to lower the water from 40 centimetres deep to 15 centimetres. Construction is expected to last for 13 months and will allow for the plaza to be reopened for the 2019 festival season. But the report said public feedback has not been favourable for that option.
The report also looked at keeping the water at 40 centimetres deep and building the two-metre-high fence or having 24-hour security. Both options would require an additional $400,000 to upgrade the filtration system required for the larger volume of water and could take an additional six months, which could impact the 2019 festival season.
The fence would impact overall aesthetics, flow and usage of the city hall plaza, according to the report and 24-hour security would be costly. The security option would also require a variance to the code be granted and would cost an estimated $121,000 annually.
“Having looked at those alternatives, given some of the costs — not so much the costs to physically change it, but some of the trade-offs in terms of reduced use of the space during shoulder seasons — and the big issue is the ongoing cost of security.
“Having someone there 24 hours a day… I just think there’s other things we could do with that money,” the mayor said.
Iveson said he’d rather put the $120,000 towards offering free admission to outdoor pools again this summer or adding some kind of playground feature at city hall than use it to make the wading pool slightly deeper while meeting provincial rules.
READ MORE: City staff recommending Edmonton’s outdoor pools remain free next summer
“I’ve heard from my constituents they want to keep it,” Councillor Mike Nickel said.
“I like it just the way it is but unfortunately I’m going to be restricted in terms of how much water I can throw in there. I said I also believe I’d make it deeper if I could but that’s not going to happen,” Nickel added.
“So, let’s just try and get this to conform to the guidelines and not change it.”
Even with the changes, the report said the pool would not be able to operate past 2019 at 40 centimetres deep because of provincial rules around how quickly the water drains, which is also referred to as “anti-entrapment” legislation.
Council has approved $13 million for the project and construction is expected to start in April.
This issue will be picked up and discussed further at the next city council meeting.
A motion was put forward to see if the city can keep the 40-centimetre water level. In order for that to happen, the budget would need to be readdressed. An additional $400,000 would be needed for upgrades and an extra $120,000 would be required annual for 24-hour security.
Comments