The Electric Fountain News

On the afternoon of Friday, June 26th, a quick moving thunderstorm hit City Park and the 90-foot tall column of water from the center geyser nozzle was struck by lightning. Some of the equipment in the fountain vault and colored LED lights were damaged by the direct strike. The lights are being repaired and will be functional for the 2010 season.

Denver Parks and Recreation and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science are working on a lightning detection system that will shut down the Electric Fountain when there are nearby lightning strikes. The fountain will be fully operational for the season on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend.

The cold and wet weather this spring delayed the completion of the repairs to the Electric Fountain lighting, but final testing of the replacement lights will take place the week of May 17. The annual spring start-up procedures will also begin mid week with the flushing of the fountain pumps and plumbing.

Over the two weeks leading up to the start of the fountain season on May 28, the fountain may be seen during the day and at night as it is tested and new fountain shows are written to feature the last water features and lighting installed on the fountain after the DNC was over.

The Beehive spray rings and Ribbons were supposed to be featured last year, but the lightning strike cut short the time to add them to the fountain shows. Likewise, the supplemental lights for the peacock fans and ribbons have not yet been seen in their full glory.

The LED lighting for the Electric Fountain has been repaired and was demonstrated on opening night, May 28th.

In addition, the lightning detection system, installed in cooperation with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is also operational.

The fountain will run at a reduced height if lightning is detected nearby; the fountain will shut down if lightning is detected within 5 miles of City Park.

The multi-color LED lights on the fountain are programmed to turn on at a low level during extremely cold weather to protect the electronics from damage. Consider this the City Park version of "northern lights."

The 2011 operating season for the Electric Fountain opened on Friday, May 27th. The fountain will run until the end of September. The lights come on at dark each night.

The operation and maintenance of the Electric Fountain is now totally in the hands of Denver Parks and Recreation. The Facilities Maintenance division takes care of all fountains in Denver city parks. If you see a problem with the operation of the fountain, you can call 311 to report it.

An extended partial power outage in City Park caused damage to some electrical equipment in the irrigation and fountain systems.

The fountain pumps are operating again as of 4PM on Wednesday, June 29th. We are still diagnosing problems created by the partial power outage but hope to have everything back in full operation soon.

The Electric Fountain was turned off manually on Wednesday afternoon and evening (July 6th) due to concerns about lightning in the area. The lightning detection algorithm as been adjusted to be more sensitive. We will monitor the situation to see if this change shuts down the fountain too often because of distant lightning.