Are Bakersfield's city water spray parks and Riverwalk Park time bombs for our youth? - By N.L. Belardes

Ahh yesteryear. I remember the days in Bakersfield when I would go down to the old Planz Park swimming hole. For a quarter, I would get to swim for hour upon glorious hour. I would pretend to be a fish and wriggle and dive and splash. The pool was refreshing. Crystal blue, the water had enough chlorine to make your eyes redder than the big Red Eye of John Wessling’s new radio show.


Not Planz pool from yesteryear, but a modern spray park

I remember being made to wash off from an icy shower before getting to jump into the pool. We entered through a gate where the shower poured. We got a quick chill and plopped our quarters into a slot. “Count to four while you turn around,” the lifeguard said. She knew most kids would cheat if you let them and spin around real fast. We were kids. Kids have runaway minds, are impatient, and most deviously have runaway feet.

We were told time and again, “Don’t run on the cement!”

Oh yes, I can distinctly hear those words. You think I didn’t get yelled at for running on the cement? I can hear the echoes: “Don’t run on the cement or you will have to leave the pool area!”

I heard that line plenty of times—running across a slippery cement surface toward water or to a towel away from the pool: “Stop running!”

But today is different. City’s like Bakersfield want to save on water, liability, and training and paying lifeguards. Pools are shut down. Kids get left in the heat.

Then comes the influx of Bakersfield city spray parks. Bakersfield has five of them now with the latest built at Beale Park over the remains of what was once a thriving Oleander Street pool. You know, a pool, where if used correctly a kid can learn a basic skill like swimming.


Wet cement at the Beale spray park

So what? The kids are having run, right? It's Disneylandish. They splash, they duck, they get sprayed, they run.


Looks harmless enough...

They run? Wait until the cement weathers a little more. Oh no, did I say cement? You mean to tell me that the city has built spray water parks where cement gets covered with water and kids run on it? You mean to tell me that thick metal pipes poke from hard cement and kids innocently run and play with no lifeguard on duty? No need for a lifeguard or kid management other than parents, right?


No covers around the metal. Better hope a big kid doesn't
run into your baby while junior is near a pole

Perhaps no liability. And if there’s no liability there’s no more need to tell kids to not run, to not get hurt.

No liability? Reminds me a little of Riverwalk Park. No liability, so no need to try to protect children, I mean, no need to protect themselves from lawsuits.

I spoke with an anonymous city worker today about Riverwalk Park, Bakersfield's newest death trap.

“They didn’t want to put up signs because they said they would be tacky and create liability for the city. I think the city just waits for these things to happen. I knew someone was going to get killed out there.”

Oh really? A city worker said that? And some of you just blame the parents? Cesario posted a comment on a recent post. He wrote, "Blame? Learn." What do you want to do, educate through drownings?

I spoke to a co-worker today who said, “People don’t swim in Truxton Lake in droves. Why didn’t they make the Riverwalk Park appear less inviting? They could have used boulders along the edges."

Of course my problem is with the civic responsibility of the city; such responsibility gets replaced with complacent lawspeak. Sure, parents are often dumb and not responsible. But then, we pay a city council to exist, to represent us, to make safety first in all projects. But then, we’re talking big money, and big bureaucracy and relationships between entities like Bakersfield’s Parks and Recreation and Castle and Cooke. They're deeply invested in the New Westside. And they all want to look good to the New Westside, or whatever that big Häagen-Dazs Oaks style community is out there.

What would happen if it were a Häagen-Dazs Oaks kid who died at Riverwalk Park? Or can they all afford swimming pools? Are they too good to jump into water that isn’t pristine; that isn’t properly PH balanced? Perhaps the wealthy folks don’t have to worry about cooling off… but if one of those kids perished... would the lakes then be rebuilt at Riverwalk Park?

Not that I would jump into Riverwalk Park’s lakes. I admit I am overprotective... for personal reasons.

But people do want to be cooled off.

I spoke to Chris, Dorrell and Kevin at Beale Park today. Although young, they seemed to be of an age where they might have also remembered the Beale pool of recent yesteryear. I said, “Hey you guys ever go hang out here when there was a pool?”



“Yeah, it was right here. We used to swim here,” one of the kids gestured to the Beale Spray Park as it shot water in every direction.

“Do you remember what the lifeguards said if you ran on the wet cement?”

“They said to stop running,” one of the kids said.

“Why do you think they let people run on the wet cement at the spray park?” I asked.

They turned around and looked at the water pouring all over the wet cement, pondering the contradiction of which they were suddenly aware. They turned back around with “I don’t know” looks on their faces.



I was suddenly reminded of the spray parks in Las Vegas when I lived there. Those all had the safer sponge material to walk and run on. I got the kids attention again: “Do you think it would be safer if it were that spongy material that some parks have? You could run and fall and not get hurt so bad? It's kind of rocky with a grip.” I wondered who was cutting costs at the new spray parks.

“Oh yeah. It’s slippery out there. We fall down all the time.”

What’s that I hear?

Tick tick tick tick tick…

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Wednesday, July 05, 2006. You can leave your response.