Five years ago, when the Central Blair Recreation and Park Commission learned that the filtration system of Memorial Pool in Juniata was beyond repair – and that the pool might not re-open – Commissioner Eric Cagle suggested building a spray park in its place.

Spray parks were becoming popular in big cities, were cheaper to operate and eliminated parents’ fears of children drowning, he said.

On Thursday, Cagle, now commission chairman, spoke at the dedication of the facility he advised the commission to construct at that March 2010 meeting.

“It was a sad day when we shut it down,” he said of the pool, which his wife and her family patronized as kids. “We agonized over what to do.”

That bureaucratic agony was not on the minds of the children the commission recruited from its competitive swim team and city employees families to baptize the sprayers and buckets and fountains Thursday.

They endured the speeches, then, despite the cool and breezy weather, after initial hesitation, they ran through the showers, as the adults had envisioned.

“Loved it,” said Morgan Kearney, 11, afterward.

“Liked it,” said her friend Felicity Rogers, 6. “A lot,” she confirmed.

Darlene Sinisi, Felicity’s grandmother, said her family will “most definitely” be coming this summer.

Jim Frank, representing U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster at the event, spoke about getting older and realizing the importance of “taking a negative situation and making it positive.”

The negatives included the pool’s closure, the eventual rejection of neighbors’ urgings to rebuild the pool, the failure of a skate park project that freed up money for the spray park and delays in obtaining a state grant.

Speaking with commission Executive Director Mike Hofer, as children continued to run through the water after 45 minutes Tuesday, city Controller A.C. Stickel said he wasn’t sold at first on the spray park idea.

But imagining his 21-month-old grandchild at the park, he realized he

wouldn’t need to get wet himself – like he would if it were still a pool.

Kids really like spray parks, Hofer discovered on a family trip to Disney World, before he knew much about the phenomenon, he said.

They had all been headed to a pool there, and his kids noticed the water coming out of some miscellaneous equipment off to the side.

“We never made it to the pool,” he told Stickel.

A “rain brain” computer program will enable management at Memorial to set the sprayers – ranging from nozzles flush with the concrete to pipes up high, some embedded in models of a locomotive, a baseball glove and a mushroom – to run constantly or intermittently, at whatever intervals are desired, Hofer said.

The water flows to a drain and recirculates through a sand filter.

The water was warmer than one would have thought, based on a hand placed in one of the fountain streams.

The water gets warmer as it flows over the concrete, Hofer said.

Earlier this week, when the staff was trying out the facility, water temperature was 82 degrees, he said.

The commission will charge $2 admission for anyone 18 and under and $1 for adults. Individual season passes will be $25. Season passes for a family of four are $50, plus an additional $10 for each additional family member.

The spray park project cost about $750,000, Hofer said.

It was part of an overall $1-million upgrade at Memorial that included renovation of the basketball court, the addition of a third pavilion, installation of a playground facility and renovation of the bathhouse and concession stand.

The funding comprised a $318,000 grant from DCNR, $71,500 obtained by Shuster, $50,000 in Community Development Block Grant money from the city and about $560,500 from a city recreation bond.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.