Making a splash in Fountain City

By Steve Williams

It’s amazing how much life the fountain brings to Fountain City Lake.

Turned off for most of the past two years as work has been going on in the lake, the fountain was turned on again a little over a week ago to the delight of many.

Samantha Baker, 2½ years old, was among those to see it Tuesday, Aug. 9.

“She was real excited when she saw it,” said her father Bryan Baker of Fountain City. “A ‘waterfall’ – that’s what she called it.”

Samantha soon turned her attention to the ducks and enjoyed feeding them.

“The fountain was turned back on last week as our contractor begins to wrap up their work on replacing the pump and much of the piping and infrastructure of the lake’s filtration system,” noted City of Knoxville Parks and Recreation Director Joe Walsh via e-mail on Aug. 11.

“We are currently working on getting the best combination of aesthetically pleasing water flow from the fountain and enough flow to help keep the water in the lake moving around. Things are looking better, I think.”

Randy Sharp and his family from Halls also were at the Fountain City Lake Tuesday and doing some fishing, including his wife Rachel and stepsons Mason Bailey and Colton Bailey. Mason is a 7th grader at Halls Middle School and Colton is in the second grade at Halls Elementary School.

A public meeting on the Fountain City Lake project is scheduled for Aug. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the Lions Club Building located at Fountain City Park, 5345 N. Broadway.

081516_KNOXVILLE_FOCUS