Slides reopen at aquatic center

Although there are only a few days left to enjoy them this season, the two slides at the Fort Scott Aquatic Center are open for use.

A news released issued by the city Tuesday said the city has received approval from the Kansas Department of Labor to re-open the slides, which had been closed since July 2 as local officials worked to comply with new state legislation concerning regulation of amusement park rides.

The slides were closed as a result of amendments made this year to the Kansas Amusement Ride Act and Amusement Ride Insurance Act.

“We had our inspection and we just had to go through the permit process,” Deputy Fire Chief Dave Bruner said Tuesday. “Once we completed items that needed to be taken care of, permits were issued.”

The law defines a water slide as an amusement ride if it is a “slide that is at least 15 feet in height and that uses water to propel the patron through the ride.”

It also states that “no amusement ride shall be operated in Kansas unless a valid permit for such ride has been issued by the Kansas Department of Labor and the owner of the ride has registered with KDOL as an amusement ride owner, starting July 1.”

One issue officials faced was getting an inspector to issue permits as there are a limited number of inspectors available. Bruner said a KDOL-approved inspector was hired by Splashtacular, the Paola-based company that installed the water slides prior to the aquatic center opening in 2012.

He said he didn’t have an estimate of the cost of the inspection.

“We had the slides inspected and they confirmed that our insurance policy was current and issued our permit,” Bruner said.

Bruner said the slides were inspected for “life safety and structural deficiencies,” of which none of the latter were found.

“They (Splashtacular) were great to work with,” Bruner said. “They met all our needs and anything we needed … they were very accommodating to the whole process.”

Another question was whether the water on some slides propel people forward. Bruner said there is water that travels down the slides but officials were trying to determine if it meets the law’s definition.

“We met the criteria needed to have our slides inspected,” he said. “There’s a certain flow of water on the slides.”

The slides were closed after the city received a notice of the amendments on July 1.

Chasity Ware, manager of the Fort Scott Aquatic Center, said in July the closing of the slides did not appear to have hampered attendance at the pool, and patrons have been understanding of the issue.

The pool is slated to close for the summer Aug. 20.

According to the city news release, the city thanks citizens for their “understanding while we waited for approval from the state.”

The law was passed after a state lawmaker’s son, Caleb Schwab, died in August 2016 on the Verruckt water slide at Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kan. It imposes new inspection and permit requirements on amusement rides, although a portion of the law that imposes criminal penalties for operating a ride without a license was delayed until Jan. 1 to give ride operators time to comply with the new regulations, the Associated Press has reported.