PROVO — For 150 years, children have found relief on hot summer days by splashing in the water that flows through Provo's Pioneer Park.
Those days are gone. The Provo City Council is expected to vote Jan. 2 to pipe the water and fill in the stream, creating a debate about how to preserve free water play for kids in Provo's poorest neighborhood.
What decades ago was known popularly as the Fifth West Ditch has more recently been called the poor man's Seven Peaks, after the commercial water park on the city's east side where a half-day's pass costs about $12.
Playing in the stream was free, like the rest of the city park. Provo's original town square in 1850, Pioneer Park covers a full square block on the southwest corner of 500 West and Center Street, with a playground next to the water, a picnic pavilion, lots of green grass and massive trees that supply shade.
"This will be a big, sad surprise to a lot of people," City Council member Cindy Richards said.
Kids in the neighborhood used to joke that, "If you don't play in that ditch, puberty won't kick in," said Tom Parker, former Franklin Neighborhood chairman. "The point is that it's something of a local institution. It's the place where poor kids can play in the water easily in a park setting. It doesn't cost $3.50. We get a lot of immigrant families there now, and also a lot of old Provo families.
"The big thing is, in the hot weather, we need some easy free relief for folks of very limited means. I'd very much like to see this water replaced with some form of play area with water but not with a fence around it and not with a charge for it."
Relief may come.
"We are looking at a meandering stream concept and at a fountain concept," said Roger Thomas, director of parks and recreation. "We're also looking at a water playground concept. But whatever we're looking at is unfunded."
The city spent $1.4 million last year to build a new splash pad for children five blocks away, next to the Veterans Memorial Pool and Water Slide Park, 450 W. 500 North. Admission is $3 for everyone 4 years old and older. Younger children are free.
City Council members Steve Turley and Midge Johnson indicated a desire to fund a replacement for the stream at Pioneer Park.
A number of reasons led to the decision to fill in the stream, said Greg Beckstrom, Provo's deputy public works director.
Most of the water was Provo River water diverted to the city's power plant for cooling purposes. New cooling towers built at the plant removed the need for the water.
The rest of the water went to 18 irrigation users, but the city shut off their water in October after several years of notice. Only two users contacted the city with questions, and neither asked for continued irrigation service, Beckstrom said.
The stream would therefore have carried nothing but storm water which Beckstrom said would make it "little more than a muddy nuisance."
Finally, UDOT is scheduled to widen 500 West along the Pioneer Park block sometime in 2007. The work will add a second dedicated left-hand turn lane from northbound 500 West onto westbound Center Street, which serves as an on-ramp to I-15.
Provo city leaders hope also to get a dedicated right-hand turn lane from eastbound Center Street onto southbound 500 West.
Beckstrom said a 24-inch pipe will be put in the ditch to carry the storm water. Workers will remove concrete walls and drop structures in the ditch bed in January or February, then fill in the ditch, modify sprinkling systems and add sod.
Mayor Lewis Billings said filling in the stream is safer for children.
"From a public safety standpoint, we have been worried about kids playing that close to a very busy street."
The timing allows Provo to let UDOT do and pay for much of the work, Billings said.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com