ARLINGTON (1080 KRLD)- The City of Arlington will reopen public pools and "splash pads" on Memorial Day with additional protocols in place. The changes follow the death of a three-year-old boy last year who contracted an infection from an amoeba.
Bakari Williams was playing at a splash pad last September. His family sued, saying Arlington was negligent in monitoring and chlorinating water.
The city has since settled the lawsuit and says it spent $600,000 on new equipment, policies and training at water parks.
“The policies in the Bakari Williams Protocol reflect the highest industry standards for aquatic facility maintenance and ensure multiple levels of accountability” Arlington Parks and Recreation Director James Orloski wrote in a statement.
“Arlington is committed to creating greater transparency to reassure our visitors about our water quality safety as well as with sharing our improved policies with other agencies in the aquatics industry across the nation so they can learn from our hard lessons.”
The city has provided a list of improvements made at water parks:
-- The addition of QR codes on signs at all aquatics facilities that will allow visitors to access the data of the most recent sample collected about water quality and other important facility information using their smartphones.
-- New digital water quality testing capabilities that reduce human error by eliminating visual inaccuracies in the testing process.
-- Automated water chemistry controllers with advanced sensors and features designed to produce safe and clean water and automatically shut off any splash pads where water readings are not in the acceptable ranges.
Chlorine minimum levels will be set at 2.0 ppm for all splash pads, which exceeds the State minimum.
-- The addition of a secondary sanitation system, a state-of-the-art ultraviolet (UV) system, at splash pads.
-- Additional staff will be trained as Certified Pool Operators and water quality at splash pads will be tested three times a day, which exceeds state requirements when the facilities are open to the public.
-- Software that replaces the City’s handwritten record process by providing real-time water quality data and inspection records to aquatics employees remotely through an app. This app also has the capability to alert management about chemical readings outside of acceptable.
-- New paint and play surfaces at the Don Misenhimer Park Splash Pad.
Related
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow NewsRadio 1080 KRLD