OROVILLE – Alicia and Jason Vargas appeared before the city council at their Aug. 6 meeting to discuss the possibility of adding a splash pad to one of Oroville’s parks to help kids keep cool during the hot summer months.

“I grew up here, I went to high school here. I graduated from high school and I left the area for a while. I decided to come back and I have three children now. I think Oroville could have a few more amenities and one of those amenities could be a splash pad. We frequent the Tonasket splash pad a lot in the summertime. I take the kids there, sometimes two times a week. While I’m at the Tonasket splash pad I see a lot of people from Oroville that I know and I see a lot of people from Omak that I know. So, people are traveling from outside communities to go to Tonasket,” said Alicia Vargas.

She said that she sees a lot of open spaces when she looks around.

“One of the open spaces I’ve noticed that we go to is the Oroville City Park and there is a soccer field there and there are bathrooms. I feel that would be the perfect spot for a splash pad. I feel like it is a central location. Honestly, I think our community would benefit from it. It is really good for physical health and good for the mental health of our youth. It can provide access to clean water features for people who cannot access the lake,” she said.

She said there were people like disabled youth and kids who are too young to swim who need an option to safely enjoy a water feature during the hot summer days without the risk of drowning.

“Another important thing to note is the City Park is not on the lake. I’ve been talking to people to see where we should have one and a lot of people mention Veterans Memorial Park. The only issue with that is it is located on the lake so they would still have access to the lake,” said Vargas. “We would like a piece of Oroville City Park land allocated for a splash pad,” she said. Vargus said, “I’ve kind of started to get the ball rolling. I am in the middle of a grant writing class right now. We’ve been talking to a non-profit organization, TOI, that we’ve got support from.” She said she and her husband also been talking to several different .

“We have concrete, electrical and excavation,” said Jason Vargas, his wife adding that he was going to do the excavation.

She said with the support of the non-profit, she only needed the support of the city to collaborate to make her grant writing successful.

“It is an important determining factor to my moving forward to apply for a grant. Another thing is the user maintenance the cost would have to be factored into the park’s budget,” she said.

She said the package that they had found was low-maintenance.

“It’s smaller, like 40 feet wide so it doesn’t take much maintenance. Parks like that can break down occasionally. The equipment will need some type of upkeep but the cost are not as big as if it were a large park,” she said.

Amy Morris from TOI (The Oroville Initiative) asked if everyone knew what a splash park was because she didn’t before getting involved.

“Basically, it is a concrete pad and it has plumbing built underneath the ground. It would be a 40 foot round pad and it has water features that are built on a timer,” she said.

“It’s like running in the sprinkler,” said Mayor Ed Naillon.

“It is, but cooler,” she said.

She said all the splash pads she had been looking at were all-inclusive, so people in wheelchairs can access the water features.

Councilman Richard Werner asked if the water was always fresh or whether it was recycled.

“There are systems that we’ve looked at where you put the water into the sewer, but there are also systems where you have a tank and a filter system to reuse the water. But it does add to the cost of it,” said Jason Vargas, adding that the splash puts out 58 gallons per minute.

“There are packages where they include the underground filtration system for recycling, it just costs a bit more,” said Alicia Vargas.

Steve Thompson, Superintendent for Public Works he would have to ask the city’s sewer engineer to see how many gallons of fresh water the water treatment plant could handle.

“The thing of it is we don’t want it to effect the number of new houses we could put on our water system,” said Thompson.

Councilman Werner said he was concerned that the City Park was one of the few soccer fields in town.

“It is small enough we could put it where the former Visitor Information Center was,” said Morris.

Mayor Naillon said, “We must remember that park floods. And, you’re talking about ADA. Wherever we do put it would have to have an ADA accessible sidewalk to that feature. It will have to be something we consider when we design this thing.”

“We definitely want it on the higher ground. I am proud of you for trying to contribute to your community. I think this is something that is in line with our Parks & Recreation plan that we tried so hard to frame. So, I think that there is probably a way to do this; we have to take into consideration things like water rights, requirements for prevailing wage if the city has any involvement with the grant. If we don’t, I think that doesn’t apply,” said the mayor.

“One of the great things about having it at City Park is the fact it is an actual attraction when you’re going through town. We need more of those to get people to pull over here and spend some money here,” said Morris.