An outbreak of gastrointestinal illnesses in June has sparked an investigation into the sanitation and oversight of recreational splash pads throughout Sedgwick County.
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In June, several kids were hospitalized and dozens more left severely ill after playing in the water at Tanganyika Falls Splash Park in Goddard, the Wichita Eagle reported.
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Following the outbreak, the park director, Matt Fouts, said that close to 24 cases were linked back to the park, which closed down just three weeks after it held its grand opening, KWCH reported.
An investigation was launched on June 19 by the Sedgwick County Health Department to try and find the connection between the illnesses and the splash pad. The kids who got sick suffered from high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea.
The Eagle reported that several parents shared they were always wary of the parks out of fear of cleanliness.
“I always have the fear of ear infection in the back of my mind with regular splash pads because my friend had one when we were younger after visiting a water park. But Shigella? No thanks,” Katie Eppley, a Wichita mother, said to the Eagle.
Wichita’s environmental Health department and facility operators are expected to adhere to water quality standards and inspect parks routinely. But that standard is not held throughout all of Sedgwick County or the state.
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Of the inspection reports filed by the Environmental Health department, more than half showed code violations over the last five years, the Eagle reported. However, Kansas does not have any regulations for the operation, construction, filtration, disinfection, or inspection of recreational water features, like pools, parks, and pads.
“Outside of Wichita, there aren’t inspections,” Sedgwick County Health Department Director Adrienne Byrne said to the Eagle. “We don’t have Environmental Health with the county health department, and so cannot provide inspections unless there’s an issue like there was with Tanganyika.”
There are certain contamination levels with splash pads due to the nature of children using them, but parents ultimately should make sure their children use them safely, if at all.
For what caused the contamination at Tanganyika, the Eagle reported that an email showed animals were ruled out of the case by the state health departments.
The park reopened a month later, the last weekend of July, and there have been no issues reported since.