Wallingford wading pool is closed for the season

The leaves may not be falling yet, but the last gasp of summer is upon us. If your kids are looking to get in one last splash before school starts, you’ll need to head elsewhere—the Wallingford Playfield wading pool is now closed for the season. When asked to comment about the (seemingly) early closure of Wallingford’s wading pool, Laurie Dunlap, of the Seattle Parks and Recreation office, had this to say:

The wading pools that stay open through Labor Day are “the big three”—Green Lake (northwest), Lincoln Park (southwest), and Volunteer Park (central east)—which always get the heaviest use citywide.  Also Van Asselt wading pool stays open till then, for the sake of geographical equity and because it gets the heaviest use of the southeast-area wading pools.  The other 12 wading pools close in late August.  Because we lack the funding to keep all wading pools open through Labor Day, we keep open the ones that we know from historic statistics will serve the most kids.

Along with the major factor of funding, most of our wading pool attendants are college kids who need to head back to school before Labor Day.

All of our 10 sprayparks—which are far less expensive to run because they don’t require attendants, use less water, and rack up much smaller drainage bills—are open through Labor Day.