Snake River Falls Water

When was the water for Snake River Falls switched over to lake water? I always remember noticing that this ride used treated clear water as you could see it and smell the chlorine.

Oh yuck, is this true? I know TC uses the lake water but that’s replaced daily. I don’t think the same can be done with SRF?

Make sure you flush extra in the frontier bathroom next time so there is a bigger splash next door at srf

I rode Thunder Canyon and Snake River Falls back-to-back repeatedly for just under 3 hours today, and I am certain that SRF is still using municipal water. The lake water in TC is significantly different than SRF’s municipal water in terms of color (noticeably greenish for TC vs. brown for SRF), clarity (TC’s water is almost milky; SRF’s water is a lot less opaque), drying texture (TC’s water definitely leaves a sticky residue; SRF’s water is much cleaner), and especially scent (TC’s water smells strongly of chlorine, which indicates that the chlorine is reacting with a lot of organic material in the water; SRF’s water has little to no smell to it).

The brown coloration of SRF’s water is most likely the result of dye added to hide machinery and provide theming; when they first fill the reservoir at the beginning of the season, it is crystal clear. It’s also likely SRF’s water doesn’t smell strongly like chlorine just yet because the ride’s water reservoir doesn’t have much organic material in it yet to react with the chlorine.

(Fun fact, Intamin’s 1985 spillwater/shoot-the-chute Diamond Falls at Kings Dominion used lake water from the park’s Lake Charles, and the park maintenance team had constant issues with mold and lake slime due to the usage of lake water. Not a very fun fact, actually, I guess, LOL.)

I question why you would have a strong chloramine smell from Thunder Canyon when I am reasonably certain that water *can’t* be treated as the ride uses Sandusky Bay as its reservoir…meaning when the pumps shut off, the water goes immediately back out to the bay. Any kind of chemical treatment of that water would likely draw unwanted scrutiny from regulatory types.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

bootymix96:

the park maintenance team had constant issues with mold and lake slime due to the usage of lake water

Reading this makes me think about some of the Intamin debate in the TTD thread. Quite eye opening.

Sorta related, someone asked about the maverick water cannons. Tony said that they had to have a guy go out in waders every morning to unclog the pumps and they were still unreliable.

RideMan:

I question why you would have a strong chloramine smell from Thunder Canyon when I am reasonably certain that water *can’t* be treated as the ride uses Sandusky Bay as its reservoir…meaning when the pumps shut off, the water goes immediately back out to the bay. Any kind of chemical treatment of that water would likely draw unwanted scrutiny from regulatory types.

I asked about this during the Q&A at CoasterMania 2016 because I thought the exact same thing; the head of ride maintenance confirmed that Thunder Canyon's water is chlorinated, and that they neutralize the chlorine each day prior to discharge at the end of the night. He described the full daily water cycle like this: In the morning, fill up the ride from Lake Erie, shut off the intake pumps, chlorinate the closed loop of water within the ride. In the evening, neutralize the free chlorine left in the water, then discharge into Lake Erie. Since they likely just do one dose of chlorine at the beginning of the day when they fill, I would imagine that most of the free chlorine in the ride water would have either been spent over the day or lost to offgassing, leaving little free chlorine at the end of the day. This cycle would be problematic in the event of a complete emergency stop necessitating a channel drain, though.

(For what it's worth, I also asked the ride operations manager about the impact of algal blooms on TC, and the ride operations manager said it's never been a problem that would necessitate a ride closure. I'm guessing the chlorination further helps mitigate the impact of Lake Erie algae as well.)

Hudson:

Sorta related, someone asked about the maverick water cannons. Tony said that they had to have a guy go out in waders every morning to unclog the pumps and they were still unreliable.

Understandable, but on the other side of the coin, that is also easily preventable by closing the retention pond off + filtering the water a bit. See: Kings Island giant fountain...

Sounds like laziness.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Wouldn't they have to create wetlands elsewhere if they did that? If so, it doesn't seem worth it.

I wonder if the sensors are still active or in place in the event they ever decide to bring back the water bombs. I always liked watching that part of the ride. Heck, they brought back the tunnel theming just to turn around and eventually get rid of the water feature.

magdrag95, but don’t forget the fountain at Kings Island is regular clear water and not pumped in from a lake or bay.

Also I might be missing something, and if I am, that’s ok, but I’m pretty sure that Snake River Falls uses regular water.

Thunder Canyon definitely has water pumped in from Sandusky Bay, you can definitely tell just by looking at it.

Just a random update here, I am now fairly sure that CP has only recently begun to chlorinate the LE water for Thunder Canyon (i.e., in the past 10 years--specifically sometime between 2013 and 2015). There is a large white plastic tank by the pump house/beginning lift, and when riding TC the other day, I noticed what looked like a large bucket of chlorine powder for pools next to that tank, which leads me to believe that this tank is part of the chlorination system. The tank can be seen in the center of the photo below from CPInsiders.net:

Now, I found an aerial of Thunder Canyon from its opening year (1986) CP posted on Twitter, and I noticed that the white plastic tank is not there:

I did some further sleuthing on Google Earth's date-stamped satellite image archive, and it looks like the tank (and, therefore, the chlorination system) was installed in either 2013, 2014, or 2015. (Google does not have the relevant images available for 2013 or 2014, so I cannot pin down a specific season.) In July 2012, the tank was not there yet:

However, by October 2015, the tank is there:

If it is true that TC has only recently begun to chlorinate the LE water, I find it interesting that TC would have ran for a little over 25 years or so without chlorine. Now, I could be off the mark with all this, of course. However, I also remember TC's water seeming like it was not chlorinated in the past, especially with its distinctive (i.e., fishy) lake water smell, which has diminished significantly with chlorination. In any case, I definitely feel chlorine improves the ride experience here!

After someone sued some park for alleging that they got an eye eating parasite from a ride, I can see why they might do it.

Meanwhile the beach is wide open and full of guests.

So this is what I meant. The chlorine smell was always noticeable to me standing next to SRF. Not only was it not there, but the water just looked nasty. Maybe its just a lower level of chlorine and it has caused a ton of brown algae to grow on the bottom?

2011. Slight green on the bottom but for the most part clean fresh water.

This is what it looks like now. Check out the other adjacent water and compare.