140 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Suite 202 Solana Beach, California 92075-1252 USA O: 858.720.1001 E: [email protected] www.watershape.com CSLB# 840976
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore
City of Cathedral City, CA
68700 Avenida Lalo Guerrero
Cathedral City, CA 92234
RE: FOUNTAIN OF LIFE
Summary of Findings
Dear Eddie,
This letter summarizes the findings from my visit of February 5, 2023.
1. Fountain of Life sight and surroundings
The Fountain of Life is primarily a structure that overflows with water onto a blue zero-depth splash pad. The water flows across the soft blue deck to a circular trench drain. The trench drain collects the water which is directed to a tank in the lawn at the east side of the fountain.
Water is pulled from the collector tank by pumps in a subterranean vault located in a planter area at the northeast corner of the fountain area. The water is filtered and treated before returning to the fountain, completing the cycle. The fountain has been out of operation for months.
Of particular note, it is unlikely that this fountain could be constructed and operated in it’s current condition if it was permitted. There are critical safety concerns that would prevent its operation as an interactive feature. There are also slip and fall issues and safety concerns with kids climbing the wet structure and being more than 30 inches above the soft deck.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
2. One of the primary concerns with the feature is that it is frequently climbed by children.
It is relatively easy to get high on the structure and, unfortunately, easy to fall from that height without any guardrails. The height is at least five feet.
Climbing also appears to be damaging the relatively soft Cantera stone.
The solution to fixing the fall safety hazard and the damage to the Cantera stone is to fence-off access to the central structure. A decorative fence would allow guests to enjoy the structure and feel the water in some areas but it should eliminate most of the climbing.
Conceptually, the fence would be relatively low (42”) and would be made entirely of painted stainless steel. Although glass could be used, we expect that the water would create a lot of maintenance problems for the glass. The stainless steel fence could be a whimsical design of sea creatures to match the decorative animals attached to the Cantera stone sculpture.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
3. There are several other Cantera stone sculptures surrounding the central water feature element. Most would not require fencing because they are so low to the ground.
However, the ram sculpture is also tall and climbed by guests and should be fenced off as well. From a design standpoint, we were thinking that the custom stainless steel fencing would look like tall grasses which would feel more natural with the ram as opposed to the aquatic theme that is already defined at the central core feature.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
4. The image below shows the deterioration of the approximately ½” thick soft deck material. Below that is a couple inches of recycled tire material used to absorb the impact of a falling guest. It too is deteriorating. Although these materials cover the entirety of the deck surface, there are several unprotected Cantera stone bases of the sculptures that guests can impact if falling from the sculptures. It is the bases around the central core feature and below the ram sculpture that appear to be problematic enough that decorative fencing is warranted.
5. The soft deck material has shrunk back from the channel drain, leaving a gap of almost 1” wide.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
6. The image below shows a part of the base at the central core feature. I captured this image while climbing on the structure. If I had fallen I would have hit the base at the center of the photo and I would have missed the soft deck material at the right side of the image. This seems to be enough liability for the city to justify adding a fence around the feature.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
7. The image below shows a crack in the Cantera stone at one of the columns. There does not appear to be any pending structural collapse but if left unaddressed these cracks will expand and eventually lead to more severe damage, failure and potential injury to guests. Fencing off the central fountain feature will prevent guests from climbing the structure and causing more damage as well as proving a safe zone so that potential future failures are contained and isolated from the public.
Cantera stone is relatively porous and weak. Cracks can start simply due to expansion and contraction between the heat of a hot summer day and the cold of a winter night.
Repairs can be done by replacing stone, epoxy injection, and non-shrink cementitious grouts. No repairs will look great as new stone will certainly be a color mismatch, epoxy can be noticeable, and cementitious grouts often require the cracks to be opened up even more.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
8. The image below shows a cementitious grout used at a joint running left to right at the center of the image. Part of the grout has already spalled out. Left in its current state I would expect the grout to continue to spall out, causing more damage to the stone on either side, the structural connection of the two pieces of stone, and the decorative tile at the more visible side of the joint.
9. This image shows another crack running mostly left to right. Instead of opening up the entire joint and grouting, I recommend drilling steel injection packers into the crack and injecting with a urethane. Then the packers should be immediately removed and patched with a color-matched grout. Excess urethane would be immediately wiped away.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
10. The fabricated palm leaves shown below are covered with calcium that needs to be removed by chemical and mechanical means. This is best handled by removing them and doing the work off-site.
11. Another image of the fabricated palm leaves. . .
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
12. A broken light lens that is normally submerged at an upper basin of the feature.
Unfortunately, this area is currently relatively easily accessible to guests climbing the structure. It poses an electrical shock hazard, tripping hazard and broken glass hazard.
Obviously the light fixture needs replacement but preventing future access is important.
13. The open pipe shown below is likely a return line that introduces more water to this upper basin of the feature. It is missing a cover but, more importantly, it is another tripping hazard in a submerged location under disturbed water where a climbing guest won’t see it well. The fall from this upper basin is at least five feet with no guardrail.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
14. Water is introduced to this bowl through an open pipe as well as the stainless steel spray head. Cracks are noted at the approximate 5:30 and 10:00 positions. My concern here is that the crack will continue to propagate across the floor of the bowl until it is split into two halves, collapsing in dramatic and dangerous fashion. This bowl should be replaced completely. A temporary urethane injection and new interior waterproofing may solve the problem but close monitoring would be required.
15. This image shows the crack extending towards the pipes at the floor.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
16. Concrete over one of the PVC pipes has spalled off, exposing the pipe in the upper basin of the water feature.
17. There are several joints similar to this horizontal joint where water intrusion will cause more damage over time. Sealing these joints with a flexible sealant will allow the various components to expand and contract independently while sealing the water out.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
18. The image below shows pipes entering and exiting the equipment room. The equipment room is poorly designed. There is enough headroom to have two levels of equipment but everything is located at the floor level with virtually no room to move around in the space.
19. The image below shows the single stainless steel cartridge filter. This is not a safe pit to be working on a cartridge filter where the wet and heavy filter elements (blue pleated filters at the lower left) would need to be taken up the ladder for cleaning. We would recommend using sand filtration that could be backwashed using a phone app.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
20. The electrical box is open and this does appear to be a functioning box with live circuits.
21. The control panel is large and fully mechanical. There are smaller panels with digital control systems that could be monitored using phone apps now. The controller should be easily programmable to change operating hours, adjust pump flow rates for variable speed pumps, etc.
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
22. In a couple of locations there appears to be incomplete plumbing that could simply be removed.
23. There is so little space in the equipment vault that if emergency personnel needed to help someone it would be very difficult. A new equipment layout (and potentially a second vault) could improve safety significantly).
March 15, 2023 CATHEDRALCITY-01
Mr. Edward Moore Fountain of Life
In conclusion, it is my recommendation that the Fountain of Life gets a renovation to improve safety for both the guests and employees servicing the equipment. It is difficult to estimate the potential cost of this work at this early stage of the project but if the existing mechanical room is large enough to fit a new layout then I think all new mechanical, electrical and plumbing could be roughly $100k. To add new custom stainless steel fencing around the central water feature and ram would probably be roughly $50-75k. Repairs to the Cantera stone and soft deck around the feature would probably be around $75k. Without changing anything else this brings the total to around $250k but these are very rough numbers presented without any design or bids from contractors.
My recommendation is that a formal design for these elements is completed so that bids can be obtained from local contractors. We could certainly handle the construction documents and if the city is interested in expanding the concept to include more splash pad elements around the perimeter then we can incorporate that as well.
If you have any questions please call me at 858.720.1001.
Sincerely,
David J. Peterson, P.E., IWI
President/CEO