Nanaimo Council Endorses 'Slide the City'

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City Council Endorses 'Slide the City'
July 4 or August 29

At the Special Open Council meeting on Tuesday, after spending over 5 hours debating the Colliery Dams Order stay/appeal issue, city council was able to move onto another issue involving water.

This time there was little discussion or debate and what  we witnessed was an unusually unanimous council decision.

Councillor Hong made the motion to endorse the event to take place on August 29 this year. Apparently the company had put either July 4 or August 29 forward as possible dates to come to Nanaimo.

The huge waterslide would go on the hill on Victoria Road and allow fun-seekers to slide down the vinyl slide on a cushion of water. A fee of $20+ is involved but the city hopes to see some free passes available.

The one day event is said to use the equivalent of 3 or 4 days water usage at a local water park, 80,000 gallons was the estimated amount to be used, which the city would be paid for by the operators.

The water would not be recirculated but rather flow into the storm system at this point. However a means of capture and re-use is being looked into. The company still has to provide officials with an acceptable plan to deal with water contamination. That said, if the water being used is coming from our chlorinated water supply and flushes down the slide, is not re-used, I suspect contamination is far more likely a concern using one of our lakes during the summer.

Let's hope this event gets over all hurdles, as this is a really BIG DEAL in which little ole Nanaimo beat out all the competition for this event on the entire Island, which includes that 'other' well known Island community, somewhere to the south of us.