Looking Back Through History: Splash Pad Safety Surfacing

By Gwen Ruehle

On October 17, 1903, the first permanent municipal-built playground, Seward Park, was opened to a crowd of 20,000 children (nycgovparks.org/parks/ seward-park/history). By 1907, there were 90 municipalities with playgrounds. In just three years, that number grew to 531 (pgpedia.com/p/play ground-association-america).

As the rapid growth of playgrounds emerged, so too did the injury reports, emergency room visits and critical head injuries. Parents and experts across the United States recognized the growing injury trend and worked to eliminate the largest and most prevalent hazards. In 1981, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission published the Public Playground Safety Handbook (cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/325. pdf) and parks were retrofitted to eliminate hard surfaces and high falls.

Splash Pads = Playgrounds + Water

Splash pads, like playgrounds, also have had a monumental and rapid adoption across the world. Splash pads were developed in response to providing kids with a play area to cool off without the drowning risk of pools or the sanitation problems associated with public fountains. In the rush to meet the demand, the role of implementing safety measures has been left to each individual splash pad operator, with mixed and inconsistent results. Every year, splash pads all across North America have closed to replace or retrofit their surfacing due to complaints, injuries and maintenance issues.

Splash pad operators especially have struggled with surfacing options due to the playful and interactive nature of splash pads. Kids interact with each other by jumping and running from spray feature to spray feature without the protection of clothing or shoes. The combination of bare feet and concrete has left users with burned feet, bumps, bruises, broken bones and head injuries.

To try to solve these issues, splash pad operators have been using playground safety surfaces, like pour-inplace rubber. These surfaces, while great for dry applications, were simply not developed to interact with treated water. When the adhesive inevitably breaks down, particles clog filtration systems, patchy floors create tripping hazards and microbes grow inside trapped water.

For a lack of a functional surfacing system, many cities have resorted to hiring splash pad attendants to remind kids not to run. Unfortunately, these individual stopgaps have not solved the worldwide problem facing splash pad operators. According to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, in 2014 alone, there were an estimated 20,000 injuries on pool decks, splash pads and water parks that resulted in an emergency room visit.

What Is NSF/ANSI 50?

The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) International is a third-party certification group that works with industry professionals and stakeholders to provide public health and safety-based risk management solutions. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, nonprofit organization that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system. NSF/ ANSI 50 is a set of standards that establishes minimum performance requirements for equipment, products and systems related to recreational water facility operation. These standards cover much of the equipment that goes in and around recreational water areas (i.e., splash pads, pool decks), including water sanitation, filtering, pumps and surfacing.

In 2019, after four years of research, testing and careful deliberation, NSF/ANSI 50 has introduced a new standard for splash pad surfaces. This new standard emphasizes slip resistance, impact attenuation and durability to perform in the aquatic environment. The standard was created with the knowledge that playgrounds and splash pads are used in remarkably similar ways. Specifically, the success of playground design standards provides an important template for the future of splash pad safety. To be certified to NSF/ANSI 50 (Interactive Water Play Venue Surfacing Systems), a surface must meet six performance-based requirements: • Slip Resistance – Certified splash pad surfaces must be slip resistant to minimize slip-and-fall injuries, while providing traction without being abrasive. A certified surface needs to be independently tested via the British pendulum method, an accurate test for simulating real-world conditions. Testing is conducted with three sets of materials: a controlled sample as well

as samples exposed to ultraviolet light and chemically treated pool water. • Impact Absorption – Certified splash pad surfaces must be cushioned to absorb the falls that inevitably occur. Just as playground safety surfaces must adhere to specific criteria, a certified splash pad surface must achieve a Head

Injury Criterion (HIC) value of

750, with a 0.20 meter minimum fall height. Keeping the HIC value below 1,000 is key. At a HIC of 1,000, there is an 18 percent probability of a severe head injury, a 55 percent probability of a serious injury and a 90 percent probability of a moderate head injury to the average adult. • Chemical Resistance – Crucial in the aquatic environment, where chlorine and other chemicals are used to maintain safe water, certified splash pad surfaces must maintain their traction and impact attenuation even after exposure to harsh chemicals. To determine this, a surface is independently tested by exposing samples to specifically treated water for 100 days, including three elevated chlorine

“shock” periods lasting at least 24 hours each. • Ultraviolet Light Resistance – As splash pad surfaces are exposed to sun, they must be resistant to ultraviolet radiation. A surface must maintain its traction and impact attenuation after exposure to 750 hours of intense ultraviolet light.

Any erosion is not acceptable if it compromises the surface’s traction and impact attenuation. Safety messaging also must retain visual clarity. • Cleanability – Certified splash pad surfaces must respond well to cleaning and sanitization. To test this, a dirty slurry with two major bacterial groups found in aquatic environments is applied to the surface and any surface joints. These organisms are then allowed to incubate, with one set of samples kept as a control. The organisms are first counted before placing the samples in a bleach solution. The organisms are counted again after removal from the solution. • Impermeability – Certified splash pad surfaces must not absorb water. According to the standard, a certified surface must be at least as impermeable as concrete, which is rated as 98.3 percent impervious.

A series of rigorous, independent third-party tests must be conducted for a product to pass certification. Only once a surface has passed testing to meet all six performance

standards — slip resistance, impact absorption, chemical resistance, ultraviolet light resistance, cleanability and impermeability — can the surface earn NSF/ANSI 50 certification.

NSF/ANSI 50 Surfacing Standard for Interactive Water Venues

The new standard within NSF/ ANSI 50 outlines the performance testing characteristics of a safety surface around “interactive water venues” (which is a term that includes splash pads and areas like splash pads) — specifically, the amount of slip resistance, chemical resistance, impact cushioning, ultraviolet light resistance, cleanability and impermeability a surface needs in order to be certified to the standard. How Does This Affect Aquatic Operators?

Currently, 37 states reference NSF/ ANSI 50 and an additional four states have counties that reference NSF/ANSI 50. Different state pool codes reference the NSF/ANSI 50 standards. Additionally, the Model Aquatic Health Code, as set out by the CDC, has adopted NSF/ANSI 50 standards. In this case, the Model Aquatic Health Code outlines what specifically is mandatory for facilities to adhere to (the code) and the NSF/ANSI 50 standard provides guidelines on how to comply with the code.

Operational Excellence and Risk Mitigation

It is always in a facility’s best interest to adhere to NSF standards in terms of both operational excellence and risk mitigation. Meeting NSF standards for sanitation, health and safety provides facilities additional protection from potential lawsuits. The NSF/ANSI 50 standard reduces the chance of injuries. However, should an injury occur, aquatic operators can point out that they were operating under the best and safest practices in the industry. On a product level, using NSF/ANSI 50 certified products takes the guesswork out of finding safe, high-performing products and services for aquatic operators. Independent testing ensures that a product with NSF certification can be trusted to serve public health.

Gwen Ruehle is Vice President of Marketing at Life Floor (gwen.ruehle@ lifefloor.com)

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