City water fountains are shut off in Denver, here's why
If you're planning to be out in any of Denver's parks in the coming days, make sure to bring your own water. City officials say most of its drinking fountains will be off for the foreseeable future because of staffing issues.
The city turns off the fountains in the winter to prevent them from freezing. This year, they say they don't have enough plumbers to turn them back on as they prioritize keeping the city's 30 bathrooms up and running.
The head of the city's parks and rec says they don't have the budget to hire contractors to do the work.
The following complete statement about the situation was released by a city spokesperson:
Due to current staffing challenges, we have not been able to service and open all Denver Park water fountains. We recently received approval to hire a plumber and are in that process now however, there is not a clear timeline for opening drinking fountains across the city. Denver Parks and Recreation is coordinating the opening of the plumbed restrooms and distribution of portable restrooms across our park system. Our goal is to open our plumbed restrooms and expand our year-round portable toilet access by utilizing a park visitation analysis to prioritize portable toilet placement. Due to ADA compliance requirements and current staffing shortages, we are prioritizing the opening and operating hours of plumbed restrooms to support youth programming, youth athletics and permitting. DPR will open functional plumbed restrooms and they will be accessible between the hours of 9 a.m. - 2 p.m., 7-days a week. We will not be keeping restrooms open longer hours due to staffing shortages and the potential for damage and vandalism to plumbed restrooms across the parks system. At this time, out of the 30 plumbed restrooms, 13 of those are closed to vandalism and theft of plumbing and piping in the restrooms. To address the closure of the plumbed restrooms, we have placed an ADA portable restroom at these sites to provide service when the restrooms are closed. Over the last month, we have lost 10 portable toilets to vandalism. We have also had damage to permanent restrooms on an ongoing basis. For example: this year all the copper tubing was stolen out of the Ruby Hill Restroom. The toilets in the restroom on the Diagonal at Washington Park have been blown up 4 times over the last 16 months, including the first week of July this year. We try our best to manage for this, but it is incredibly hard to respond to the on-going damage to our public facilities.
