August 25, 2022 |
In Saratoga, the State Health Department has told the town it must put up more gates around the hot pool as a safety measure.
On August 9th an inspector from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture paid a visit to the Hobo Hot Springs. The yearly inspection turned up a costly violation. No gates.
During last Tuesday’s town council meeting, Councilman Ron Hutchins said that the inspector from the Department of Agriculture, Mykel Murry, toured the town’s famous hot pools. She found that they were in violation of Chapter 3, Section 29 of the state’s policy regarding public pools and spas.
Pictured above: Saratoga Hot Pools. Photo courtesy of Town of Saratoga.
The Department of Agriculture is responsible for inspecting all public pools in Wyoming. According to their website, “Pool enclosures including gates shall be constructed to discourage access to the pool by unsupervised children or domestic animals.”
The hot pools do have walls, but no gates. With nothing in the budget for them this year, it is unlikely that the town will get the gates installed soon. Councilman Hutchins said the town has a year to install the gates and remedy the state finding of a deficiency.
Councilman Hutchins was referring to Jon Winter, public works director in Saratoga. Winter told Bigfoot 99 that the town will have to install gates at the four entrances to the pools.
The gates haven’t been budgeted for. They’ll need to be put into the 2023/2024 budget before any work can begin. Winter wasn’t able to give any cost estimate or idea of when work will start.
The gates are meant to keep unsupervised children out of the pools.
According to Hutchins when Winter questioned Murry about why it took five inspections to say anything about the gates, the inspector said she just missed it.
No other violations were found.
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