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The City of McAlester’s new splash pad at Michael J. Hunter Park remains temporarily closed due to a suspected leak in a water drainage pipe which is affecting the park’s basketball court.

The City of McAlester’s new splash pad at Michael J. Hunter Park remains temporarily closed due to a suspected leak in a water drainage pipe which is affecting the park’s basketball court.

McAlester’s new splash pad at Michael J. Hunter Park where children recently frolicked, played and splashed in the cool water is now hot and dry.

That’s because the city of McAlester has turned off the splash pad’s water supply.

McAlester Community Services Director Doug Basinger said the city had to turn off the water and temporarily close the new splash pad, which had just opened in time for last month’s Juneteenth celebration.

Problems with the splash pad are believed to stem from a leak in its water drainage system. City officials said the contractor who constructed the splash pad has been contacted, but in the meantime city employees hope to pinpoint the leak’s source.

“We are trying to determine where the drain leak is,” Basinger said Thursday. Believed to be under the splash pad, the drain leak has led to other issues with other recent upgrades at the park

“The water’s traveling underground and going under the surface of our new basketball court,” Basinger said, referring to the new basketball court to the east and downhill from the Hunter Park splash pad.

“Basinger said the water could be seen coming to the surface at several sites that would affect the basketball court. “You could see it coming up at different places,” he said.

His hope is that a camera used by the city’s Utility Maintenance department can help find the leak’s source. The plan is to lower the camera, similar to a snake inspection camera that can be lowered by a wire, into the drain in an effort to find where the leak is occurring. Basinger said the camera is already in heavy use by the city’s Utility Maintenance workers who are using it in conjunction with repairing water leaks and line breakages around the city.

“Our UTM guys are working as hard as they ever have,” said Basinger

Basinger doesn’t consider it feasible for city employees to get a jackhammer and start tearing out the concrete on the splash pad’s surface in an exploratory attempt to find where the leak is in the drainage system.

“We can’t tear up thousands of dollars worth of concrete,” Basinger said. In the meantime, the drain pipe has been capped at the bottom, he said.

Basinger isn’t sure when the UTM camera can be utilized in an attempt to find the leak at Hunter Park, but he hoped it would be this week.

Basinger said the city shares the disappointment that the new splash pad is not in operation, especially given the 100 degrees-plus temperatures that have been registering in the McAlester area as well as the region. He noted children had been flocking to the new slash pad once it opened.

“It’s unfortunate it opened and then it closed,” said Basinger.

“I don’t think anybody’s more disappointed than us — other than the little kids.”

Once the drainage issue is pinpointed and repaired, the water supply will be turned on again and the Hunter Park splash pad will be reopened, Basinger said. Plans call for the city’s splash pads to remain open as long as it’s warm enough to use them.

“Last year it was well into October,” said Basinger.

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.

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