Sun-N-Fun open house flushed, but not for safety issues

An open house Sunday for Sun-N-Fun Lagoon at North Collier Regional Park has been postponed. County officials say it's due to continuing construction cleanup and not because of a list of safety issues that a health inspector has raised.

The Sun-N-Fun Lagoon water park still is scheduled to open to the public at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Sunday's open house was intended only for tours and the pools weren't going to be open for swimming. The park is along Livingston Road, south of Immokalee Road.

"It's still very much a construction site and we want to make sure everything is in place and safe," said Camden Smith, spokeswoman for the county's Division of Public Services. "Canceling the open house had nothing to do with the health department."

The Collier County Health Department has yet to issue the county an operating permit for the seven pools at the water park because of a laundry list of safety issues that need to be addressed, said Ken Rech, environmental health and engineering director for the health department.

Another inspection of the pools is scheduled for Monday, he said.

One incident he mentioned was that reclaimed water from a sprinkler on an island in the family pool to irrigate a palm tree and grass had overflowed and soil got into the pool, he said.

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Bradie Allen, facing crowd, recreation supervisor of aquatics for the Collier County Parks and Recreation Department, goes over rules with staff lifeguards at the North Collier Regional Park and Sun-N-Fun Lagoon on Friday on Livingston Road in North Naples. The open house for the water park, originally scheduled for Sunday, has been canceled to accommodate last-minute construction cleanup. A public opening will happen at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The official grand opening day and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the park have been rescheduled for June 24 at 9:30 a.m.

Reclaimed water is treated effluent that is used in various places around Collier County, such as to water medians and golf courses.

The health inspection report said other items that need fixing are loose handrails and ladder rails in the family pool, water flow meters that need to be properly calibrated and pool depth markers that need to be confirmed once the water level is corrected.

The inspection reports prepared this week were released Friday at the request of the Daily News under Florida public records laws.

Similarly, the diving pool has loose rails and the pool's lighting and deck lighting aren't in compliance. Drain grates in the Lazy River pool need to be secured and pool rules signs aren't finished, according to the inspection reports.

Regarding the reclaimed water spill in the family pool island, Rech said he didn't know when that happened. That issue isn't contained in the inspection reports.

"We're not sure of the date," he said. "They never pinpointed the date for us."

To remedy the problem, the county changed out all the reclaimed sprinkling lines for landscaping and for the pool decks to potable, or household, water, he said.

"It's just a nice safety issue," he said. "It's always best to have potable water around swimming pools."

Smith said reclaimed water never overflowed in the family pool from the island sprinkler and instead that's something that Rech believed occurred.

"There's been no effluent contamination," she said. "Ken (Rech) in the health department felt there had been. We since found out that had not been the case."

Smith said the water was tested after he raised the issue more than a week ago and the water quality came back clear. She confirmed the reclaimed water lines for irrigation around the pools have been changed to potable water.

"We took out all the effluent lines feeding the landscaping. Now it is all potable," she said.

A representative with Kraft Construction, which was awarded a $53.8 million contract in 2004 to build North Collier Regional Park, declined to comment Friday.

Overall, Rech said, it's not unusual to have inspection issues that hold up operating permits for pools in a project of this size. And he said the construction schedule was very aggressive.

"It's a big complex and during construction operations like this, there is a lot of fine details we need for health and safety," Rech said.