Water park repairs wait on insurer

Repairs to a flood-damaged children’s water park aren’t just running behind schedule. They haven’t even started yet.

No work has yet been done to repair equipment necessary to operate the water park in City Park a year after it was flooded. City officials are still dealing with the insurance paperwork that must be completed before repairs can begin.

“We can’t start the repairs until the insurance company signs off on all the necessary work,” Martin Johansen, the city’s building services manager, said Wednesday.

He expects that approval could come by the end of the month. The repairs, while not overly complex, will start after that. The city hopes to get the popular water park operating sometime this summer.

High lake levels last June swamped the water park’s belowground control room, containing mechanical and electrical systems.

“The mechanical room was submerged in water for several months after the peak of the flooding,” Johansen said.

All the operating systems, as well as an on-site UV-treatment system that purifies the water park’s recycled water, must be replaced. None of the park’s sprayers or climbing structures were affected by the flooding, so they’ll remain as they are.

“The intention here is to put the park back exactly the way it was,” Johansen said.