Swimming pools add handicapped access

Regulations affect facilities built since ’12

Instead of sitting beside the pool watching others cool off, Adam McDaniel, 29, can escape the heat, too, even though he uses a wheelchair.

A gentle slope at the entrance of the pool at his Springdale apartment complex can accommodate a shower chair with wheels. He can enter the pool with help from an aide.

“It’s good,” McDaniel said while sitting in the pool oneSaturday morning. “It’s not cold.”

Swimming pools across the state are becoming more accessible to people with disabilities because of new federal regulations.

The U.S. Department of Justice updated regulations in 2010 under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and for the first time set minimum requirements for making swimming pools, wading pools and spas accessible, especially for people with physical disabilities that affect their ability to walk or climb stairs. The new regulations are part of the 2010 Standards for Accessible Design.

The new standards require pools built or altered after March 15, 2012, to provide accessible entrances and exits for people with disabilities. The department gave operators of existing pools until Jan. 31 to comply. The standards affect pools that are open to the public,including those at hotels and motels, health clubs, recreation centers, public country clubs and city pools.

However, guidance from the department states that owners of all existing public pools must comply when improving access is “readily achievable,” or can be accomplished without much difficulty or expense.

“People with disabilities were, for too long, excluded from participating in many recreational activities, including swimming,” a May 24, 2012, department document on accessible pools states. “The requirements for newly constructed and existing pools will ensure that, going forward, people with disabilities can enjoy the same activities - a community swim meet, private swim lessons, a hotel pool - at the same locations and with the same independence, ease, and convenience as everyone else.”COMMUNITIES ADAPT POOLS

In Arkansas, 10.1 percent of the state’s population ages 5 and older, or 271,736 people, were estimated in 2011 to have a disability affecting mobility, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency estimates that about 6.9 percent of the national population has disability that affects mobility.

Communities across the state have taken steps to comply with the new regulations for pools.

Examples of features that improve accessibility include pool lifts and zero-depth entrances in place of steps. The lifts allow a person in a wheelchair to transfer to a poolside chair and use a control device to lower himself into the water. Zero-depth entries allow someone to roll in and out of the pool on a gentle slope.

The standards went into effect during the design of the new Rogers Aquatic Center, which opened in May. Designers adjusted the plans to provide five lifts at each of the pool venues in the park, said Jim Swearingen, who served as project manager with Crafton Tull for the design of the center.

In Decatur in Benton County, Mayor Charles Linam said the City Council considered closing a community pool last year because of the added expense of purchasing and installing a pool lift. A general improvement grant from state Rep. MarySlinkard, R-Gravette, provided $3,000, which paid for most of the cost of the pool lift, Linam said. The pool remains open.

In Arkadelphia, an entire side of the Arkadelphia Aquatics Park provides zero-depth entry accessible to wheelchairs and to older adults who have a hard time using stairs, said Mike Volz, parks and recreation director for Arkadelphia.

“We have a lot of kids that come out with grandparents,” he said. “They can walk straight on in.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act regulations have increased accessibility since the 1990s, Volz said. Accessibility standards already had affected trails, parks and playgrounds and parks directors anticipated that the rules eventually would apply to pools. The aquatics park opened in 2002.

FIRST DIP

McDaniel had been to pools before, but the pool at Brookhaven Apartments, where he has lived for a year, is convenient and accommodates a chair with wheels. As the weather warmed up this year, Tiphani Moon, an aide for McDaniel from Arkansas Support Network, wanted to take McDaniel to the pool.

The planners of Brookhaven Apartments, which opened in 2004, followed recommendations to make the pool accessible to anyone with a disability, said Kendra Butterfield, property manager for the apartment complex.

Community pools for aprivate residential community can be exempt from making a pool accessible if the pool is for the exclusive use of residents and their guests and the pool is not available for the public to rent or use, according to information from the Department of Justice.

McDaniel told Moon he would like to try the pool. Moon decided they would try a shower chair with wheels. Their first outing to the pool took place the second Saturday in June. They repeated the exercise the following week.

On their second visit, Moon took McDaniel deep enough to submerge his legs. When he was comfortable, she asked if he wanted to be a little deeper.

“If you want to,” McDaniel said. “Not all the way.”

With the water a little higher than chair level, Mc-Daniel started to float and got nervous. Moon repositioned him in his chair.

“I won’t let you fall,” Moon said.

The accessibility standards are a step in the right direction, though the exceptions for existing pools send a mixed message, said Joe Butler, a father in Siloam Springs with a 12-year-old son who has cerebral palsy, which affects his flexibility and balance. Micah was the inspiration behind Ability Tree, a nonprofit organization that Butler started to expand recreational opportunities for people with disabilities.

Through Ability Tree, Butler started an annual event called Micah’s Big Day Out,planned for 6 p.m. July 26. Ability Tree rents out the Siloam Springs Family Aquatic Center for families with children who have disabilities. Last year, the event drew 150 people, Butler said.

While the center provides a zero-depth entrance into the pool for people with disabilities, they can feel like they are in the way when children zoom around them on a crowded day, Butler said. Sometimes people will stare. The annual event provides an outing where they can be comfortable and around other families affected by a disability.

Access to swimming pools is a smaller issue compared with barriers people with disabilities encounter with pursuing an education and landing a job, said Keith Vire, chief executive officer of Arkansas Support Network, a nonprofit that works with people with disabilities in Northwest Arkansas. When the regulations were published for swimming pools, some hotels around the country complained that they had removed diving boards because of safety concerns and that pool lifts would be another potential source of liability.

Greater access to pools will be a boon for people with disabilities, Vire said.

“If it was accessible, you might have people who would come,” Vire said. “People who live in this area pretty quickly figure out places that are user-friendly and places that are not. They vote with their feet or their wheels. They don’t frequent places that are not.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/24/2013

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