No "day at the beach"
9:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Topeka — A day at the beach takes a disgusting turn for swimmers at Lake Shawnee.
Lifeguards at the Lake Shawnee swimming area made the disgusting discovery on Tuesday, and one says he quit over the way the incident was handled. County officials estimate there were about 300 people at the Lake Shawnee Swimming Beach Tuesday afternoon.
At 3 p.m. the swimming area is cleared out.
For 15 minutes, everyone is kept out of the water while lifeguards go through, side-by-side, looking for anything that might be out of the ordinary.
"That is when the incident started," said lifeguard Gray Bothwell. "So we come up and we see an object in the water that was floating and the closer we got, we come to know it's human feces."
Then, they found more, lot's more.
"We found more along with several chunks that started to wash up on the shore where there were chairs sittin' out and people had their towels there and swimming equipment," Bothwell said.
Director of Shawnee County Parks and Recreation John Knight said, "What we had was, I'm guessing, a couple of young teenagers who thought it kinda fun to leave some defecation in our Lake Shawnee swim beach."
Bothwell doesn't work there anymore, because he refused to go back in the water to help clean it up. And, he thinks swimmers should have been told.
"Over the PA system, we told them there was a maintenance issue and that no one would be allowed into the water until it was resolved," he said. "And thank you for your cooperation."
The county parks and rec director says in a pool, you chlorinate. You can't chlorinate a lake, but the water at the swim beach is circulated.
"A few years ago, we did some work on that facility and we put a new pump in there to run the two water slides and the fountains in there, and it's got an 8 inch pipe on it and pumps about 1,800 gallons of water a minute."
Knight says that rapid water exchange should take care of any contamination.
"No I don't believe it was putting anybody at risk. I will tell you every time we have an incident, and thank goodness this was the only time we've had this type of incident, but every time we have an incident we review our policies and procedures and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't tweak some things out of there."
Knight says he doubts the incident was a secret to anyone at the beach.
He also says swimmers were offered rain checks, and of the estimated 300 there, only four people took the offer.
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