More Seattle wading pools slated to open this summer after being dry for 10 years

SEATTLE — The wading pool at Gilman Park in Ballard hasn’t been filled since 2008, but it will be up and running again this summer.

“To see it come back is really exciting,” Bill Melnik said.

Melnik used to bring his kids to the wading pool and now his daughter, Nina, is all grown up with her own little boy.

“I spent a lot of summer days playing in this wading pool,” Nina Melnik recalled. “And I have a 14 month old now. And it's going to be fun to bring him to enjoy the water, too.”

The wading pool at Gilman Park is one of 20 wading pools in the city that will be filled this summer. Five of them were previously shuttered the last eight to 10 years due to budget cuts.

The opening of the previously dry wading pools leaves just two wading pools that will still be mothballed this summer.

“When you look the geographic balance, there is a really nice opportunity to find something in every community,” Kathy Whitman, the aquatics manager at Seattle Parks and Recreation, said.

City councilman Rob Johnson, a father of three young girls, made it a priority to find the extra funding. He got an additional $50,000 from the planning department.

“It’s a really great story about collaboration between one department saying we could live without $50,000 so we could give it to another department to open up these wading pools,” Johnson explained.

Starting this Memorial Day weekend, parents will also be able to take their little ones to spray parks to beat the heat -- eight are opening on Saturday.

“I can't wait actually,” Veronica Wolf said. “Today we were hoping to go to a spray park and get wet.”

Mounger Pool in Magnolia opened May 13, just in time for this mini heat wave.

“About five months of the year we can come down literally every day. If we want, multiple times sometimes a day,” Neil Amrhein said.

Also opening next weekend in time for Memorial Day is the Colman pool in West Seattle. Lifeguards will also be on duty at Madrona Beach and East Green Lake.

For more on operating hours for spray parks and wading pools visit: http://www.seattle.gov/parks/find/spray-parks-and-wading-pools

Cox Media Group