Dodgers routed by Christian Walker, Diamondbacks

• July 4, 2024

LOS ANGELES — On a day when Shohei Ohtani was named a starter on the National League All-Star team, the Dodgers had to wonder why the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Christian Walker was not included in the group.

From the Dodgers’ perspective, Walker is about as good as major league players get and his two home runs, along with four hits on Wednesday night, were prime examples as the Diamondbacks rallied for a 12-4 victory.

Walker now has seven home runs in eight games against the Dodgers this season and five in five games at Dodger Stadium as Arizona overcame a three-run deficit in the first inning.

“Yeah, the numbers, it’s like better than Shohei at Dodger Stadium,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Walker, who now has 17 home runs in 41 career games at Chavez Ravine. “I think it’s a division rival and I do think we bring out the best in him. He plays really well at home against us, but at this ballpark it’s otherworldly. He doesn’t give anything away. I’ve said, he’s one of the guys who I really enjoy watching play.”

Expected to have the advantage on Wednesday, Dodgers rookie Gavin Stone could not leverage his recent run of success in a matchup with Diamondbacks right-hander Cristian Mena, who was making his major league debut.

Both starters gave up four runs in three innings, with Stone’s outing coming after he went 4-0 with a 1.97 ERA in five June starts and had a 1.62 ERA over his last six outings.

“My arm felt good but just the command wasn’t there completely,” said Stone, who threw a complete-game five-hit shutout against the Chicago White Sox last week. “You just have to forget about it.”

Mena was in trouble from the outset as each of the Dodgers’ first five hitters reached base. Shohei Ohtani singled, Will Smith walked and Freddie Freeman hit a three-run home run, his 13th. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a home run of his own, his 19th.

It was the sixth time this season the Dodgers hit back-to-back home runs and Freeman has been involved each time it happened.

“First inning, first big league start, I’m sure he had a lot of nerves out there, a lot of excitement,” Freeman said of Mena. “He was just falling behind hitters in the first inning and we were able to jump on him. He settled down a little bit and got through a couple more innings, but their bullpen, we just didn’t have anything for it the rest of the game.”

But Stone’s 4-1 lead was short-lived. The Diamondbacks received a two-out RBI double from Eugenio Suarez in the third inning and Gabriel Moreno followed with a home run, his fourth, to tie the score at 4-4.

In the Dodgers’ half of the third, a Mena balk had Dodgers runners on first and third with one out. And with the Arizona 21-year-old on the ropes again, Miguel Rojas lined out to right field and Freeman was thrown out at home by Jake McCarthy while trying to tag up and score on the play.

“They went to the ’pen and got multiple (innings) from different guys,” Roberts said. “We just didn’t have an answer. They kept adding on, to their credit. We just didn’t threaten. … I just think that they didn’t walk guys and we just really couldn’t mount anything tonight.”

Walker seized on the momentum with a two-out home run to left field in the fourth inning on a full-count pitch from left-hander Ryan Yarbrough (3-2).

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Arizona rolled from there, getting a Geraldo Perdomo bunt for a run in the fifth to take a 6-4 lead, while Walker doubled in the sixth and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. followed with a two-run home run for an 8-4 lead. It was Gurriel’s 12th on the season.

Suarez delivered a second RBI double in the eighth inning.

Walker was at it again in the ninth with a three-run home run off right-hander Michael Peterson, his 20th on the season. Walker, who went 4 for 5 with four RBIs and three runs scored, fell a triple shy of the cycle. He now has 25 career home runs against the Dodgers in 10 seasons, his most against any one team and one more than he has against the Colorado Rockies.

“You’re trying to navigate (Ketel) Marte and Joc (Pederson) and you got that guy always looming,” Roberts said of Walker. “He seems to always come up with guys on base.”

The Dodgers’ only hits after the first were a double by Rojas in the sixth and Freeman’s single in the eighth.

Marte, the Diamondbacks’ second baseman, was named an NL starter in the All-Star Game and went 1 for 4 with two walks and a run scored. Ohtani went 1 for 4 with a run scored after he was named the NL’s starting designated hitter.

​ Orange County Register 

Angels done in by sloppy defense and anemic hitting in loss to A’s

• July 4, 2024

OAKLAND — Zach Neto slapped his hand into his glove and then put both hands over his head, with a look of exasperation.

Another play that the Angels’ shortstop expected to make had eluded him, as a run scored in the sixth inning.

Neto’s defense has been one of the shining spots for the Angels during this frustrating season, but it was an issue in a 5-0 loss to the Oakland A’s on Wednesday night.

“Those are plays I should make,” Neto said. “Plain and simple. They’re plays I should make and I didn’t.”

The Angels also had to take Luis Rengifo out of the game with an injury after he fouled a ball off in the ninth inning. Rengifo, who told the Angels that he had hurt his wrist, was taken for imaging after the game. There was no immediate update on his status.

It was all part of an overall lousy night for the Angels, whose offense came up empty against right-hander Joey Estes. Estes brought a 5.24 ERA into the game, but the Angels had only five hits against him, pushing him to throw just 92 pitches in a complete game.

“I thought he was pretty good tonight,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “He was throwing his sweeper. Staying off the barrel of our bats, keeping us off balance. When we did center something, somebody was there making a play.”

The Angels, who had scored at least five runs in their previous eight games, weren’t going to win with that kind of offense, but the sloppy defense – which went beyond Neto – made it even worse.

The Angels were burned by their defense plays in the second inning, allowing the A’s to score two runs.

With one out, Zack Gelof hit a bouncer to Neto, who bobbled it. It was ruled an infield hit.

After Lawrence Butler lined a clean single into right, putting runners on the corners, right-hander Davis Daniel got a comebacker that should have been an easy, inning-ending double play. Instead, his throw was wide and got past second baseman Brandon Drury into the outfield, as a run scored.

Although the throw was slightly to the third base side of the bag, Washington said Drury should have been able to handle it.

“We’re in the big leagues,” Washington said. “That was a good throw. The second baseman has got to make an adjustment on that. … As long as that ball doesn’t touch the ground, we’ve got to make an adjustment and make the play.”

An out later, with runners still on the corners, Brett Harris took off from first to draw a throw from catcher Matt Thaiss. Butler came home from third. Neto looked home but determined that he didn’t have time to cut off the runner – a decision that Washington said was correct. Neto instead went after Harris for the final out, allowing the second run to score.

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In the sixth, Neto came up empty on an attempted sliding backhand stop of a grounder. It was clearly not an error, but Neto still reacted as if he expected to make the play, or at least knock the ball down to hold the runner at third. The A’s scored their fifth run on the play.

Neto also couldn’t glove a chopper in front of him in the seventh inning. That was again ruled a hit. The Angels escaped that inning without it costing them a run.

“A couple plays that were tough plays,” Washington said. “He just didn’t come up with them. Sometimes that happens.”

The defensive mistakes cost Daniel three of the five runs he allowed in 5⅓ innings. The other two were on homers, by No. 9 hitter Max Schuemann and Brent Rooker.

On the bright side, Daniel again pounded the strike zone. He threw a first-pitch strike to 15 of 24 of hitters, after doing it to 22 of 26 hitters last week.

​ Orange County Register 

Tustin Meadows neighborhood parade marches on

• July 4, 2024

When Debbie White was a kid living on Buckingham Place in Tustin, a big parade went by her house each year for the Fourth of July.

And thanks to her efforts — and those of others in her close-knit community — her children and other neighborhood families enjoy an annual parade to celebrate American independence … on the same street of her youth.

On Wednesday, she and her neighbors gathered to assemble their float. The parade’s theme this year is “Tustin Meadows, The Happiest Place on Earth,” and their entry is inspired by the Jungle Cruise, complete with animals drawn by a neighbor who is a former art teacher.

The float will join other homemade entries — as well as local dignitaries, a school marching band, Miss Tustin and her court, and the Tustin Unified teachers of the year — for the one-mile parade around the Tustin Meadows neighborhood of 935 homes. It kicks off at 11 a.m. from the community clubhouse.

It’s a tradition that marks its 56th anniversary this year. The week includes a community blood drive, a pancake breakfast, an ice cream social, a contest for kids decorating their bikes and more.

“It’s such a hometown event,” said White, who took over organizing the parade 15 years ago. Her husband, Lawrence, serves as emcee. “Everything is homemade, everything is done by volunteers.”

Following the parade, there will be a carnival in the local park with homemade games, a cakewalk, bounce houses and more – proceeds all go to helping the following year’s Fourth of July sparkle, White said.

Several neighbors helped put together the Buckingham Place float Wednesday. White said “people help by making drinks, painting, hammering.”

On Thursday, they might ride on the float or walk alongside it and the street’s youngsters — or visiting grandkids as is increasingly the case as the neighborhood ages — have to make the tough decision if they want to ride the float throwing candy to spectators or be in a position to catch the treats.

“We have friends and family visit for the Fourth who walk away and say, ‘I wish my neighborhood was like this,’” White said.

That’s what she and her husband wanted some 23 years ago when they moved from Irvine to White’s childhood home.

“We lived in townhomes attached to each other and didn’t know our neighbors,” White said. “When we moved here it was an instance connection.”

Now she and the other “Buckingham Babes” have a book club, an annual progressive dinner and a neighborhood watch — that’s when you sit outside and watch the neighborhood go by, she said.

Someone texts the group chat needing an onion or a cup of sugar, and the answer is always, “Here you go,” she said. “We are always here to help each other.”

But that is just the way Buckingham Place has always been.

“We’ve been here for a long time,” she said. ” We all care about each other.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Eric Gagné returns to Dodgers’ mound on 20th anniversary of saves streak

• July 4, 2024

By BETH HARRIS AP Sports Writer

LOS ANGELES — With “Welcome to the Jungle” blaring like the old days, Eric Gagné took the mound and fired a strike Wednesday night on the 20th anniversary of recording his 84th consecutive save for the Dodgers.

“Every time I step on this field, it’s like a church to me,” he said. “It’s my office on top of that little mound and walking in here with all the history – the Tommy Lasordas, the Don Drysdales, the Sandy Koufaxes of the world – it’s humbling.”

Catching Gagné was current closer Evan Phillips. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts turned down the request of his former teammate to get behind the plate, but they shared a big hug on the field.

“I don’t know what he’s going to throw and I don’t want him to embarrass me,” said Roberts, who played with Gagné from 2002-04.

The consecutive saves mark still stands as the longest such streak in major league history. It lasted 87⅔ innings in which the Canadian struck out 139 batters while not allowing any of 123 inherited runners to score. He gave up a total of two runs and no homers.

“It was like cartoon stuff, guys had no chance,” Roberts said. “I remember being out in center field and I would kind of challenge myself by not having my glove on when the pitch was thrown.”

Gagné signed with the Dodgers as a free agent in 1995 and began his career as a starter. But after struggling in that role, he was converted into a reliever.

That’s where he blossomed. From 2002-04, Gagné was the majors’ dominant closer and won the NL Cy Young Award in 2003. He was a three-time All-Star during that stretch. He finished his career with 187 saves.

Gagné pitched sparingly in 2005 and 2006 after undergoing elbow and back surgeries. The Dodgers didn’t re-sign him. He pitched for the Boston Red Sox in 2007 when they won the World Series.

That December, Gagné was linked to baseball’s steroids scandal after he was named in the Mitchell Report. In 2010, he admitted to using human growth hormone, saying it was to recover from a knee injury.

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Deeply tan from days spent playing golf and biking in Arizona where he lives, the 48-year-old credited his teammates, including Roberts and Shawn Green, for keeping the streak alive.

“A lot had to go right and the defense behind me was unbelievable,” Gagné said. “People call it a save, I call it more of a preserved win. That’s kind of how I went about my whole approach. I didn’t feel the pressure that much because I wasn’t really focused on me messing up. I was focused on helping the guys.”

Roberts helped him, too. One night in Houston, he robbed Lance Berkman of a home run in the ninth to keep the streak going.

“I’m certain that he said he owes me a dinner,” Roberts said. “I’m still hungry.”

Gagné plans to pay up next year at spring training.

“We got to find a good steakhouse worth it,” he said.

​ Orange County Register 

Zelenskyy challenges Trump to reveal plans for quick end to war

• July 4, 2024

Annmarie Hordern and Daryna Krasnolutska | Bloomberg News (TNS)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Donald Trump should come forward with his plan to quickly end the war with Russia, warning that any proposal must avoid violating the nation’s sovereignty.

“If Trump knows how to finish this war, he should tell us today,” Zelenskyy said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Kyiv on Wednesday. “If there are risks to Ukrainian independence, if we lose statehood – we want to be ready for this, we want to know.”

The former U.S. president, who leads in polls over President Joe Biden ahead of the November election, has boasted that he’ll end the war by the time he’s inaugurated in January. In the televised debate last week, Trump decried the billions of dollars spent on Ukraine’s defense, saying that Kyiv is “not winning the war.”

In a nearly hour-long interview, the Ukrainian leader lamented the delays in weapons deliveries from Western allies and said he was “potentially ready” to meet with Trump to hear his team’s proposals.

“They can’t plan my life and life of our people and our children,” he said. “We want to understand whether in November we will have the powerful support of the U.S., or will be all alone.”

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Zelenskyy pushed back on the notion that Ukrainian and Russian forces are in a deadlock on the battlefield, saying that the military is better positioned in terms of manpower than it was months ago and a new offensive is a matter of arming its brigades.

And while he lauded the $61 billion assistance package approved by the U.S. Congress this year — after a six-month long delay — he said the military equipment was taking too long to make it to the front.

“This is the biggest tragedy of this war, that between the decision and real fact, we have real long, long, long wait,” Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian leader also said China could play a “tremendous role” in resolving the conflict, since Moscow is so dependent on its market for exports. He suggested that the U.S. and China, should they put aside differences, could act together to end the war.

(With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi and Olesia Safronova.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

In blockbuster term, Supreme Court boosts its own sway

• July 4, 2024

Michael Macagnone | CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court closed out a term Monday full of blockbuster decisions on gun control, abortion and criminal charges against former presidents, but legal experts say the most impactful rulings may be those where the conservative majority flexed its influence over federal government actions and policies.

The justices extended their own power over other branches of government and the lower courts, even as they declined to go as far as some Republican-backed litigants and conservative lower courts, those experts say.

Aziz Huq a law professor at the University of Chicago, said the Supreme Court decided most issues in a way that gives them more sway over policies.

“What is distinctive here is that the consequence, the aftereffect, of these decisions is to dramatically increase the discretionary authority of courts, and in particular, the Supreme Court, at the cost of other constitutional actors’ authority,” Huq said.

In four decisions, the justices gave judges more power to review administrative agency decisions, forced certain Securities and Exchange Commission actions to be filed in federal court, allowed challenges to agency rules years after they are finalized and stepped in to pause a nationwide plan to reduce cross-state air pollution.

Clare Pastore, a law professor at the USC Gould School of Law, said the changes from those decisions will reverberate for years to come, encouraging constant lawsuits over both new and existing federal rules, with litigants shopping around for the friendliest judges.

“I think anyone who’s paying attention, can see that the court is engaged in a project of — some would say rolling back, some would say dismantling — the administrative state as much as possible, and the rulings that the court has just issued take us a kind of a stunning distance in that direction,” Pastore said.

Those cases emerged as part of a term filled with major decisions on the structure of federal agencies, abortion, Congress’ taxation power, gun regulation and former President Donald Trump.

In the cases where the court did not rule in favor of conservatives, they did so in a way that avoided a major decision on abortion or other contentious issues in an election year, or avoided a “calamity” such as a ruling that avoided sweeping changes to congressional power to tax, Huq said.

That includes decisions where the justices upheld regulations about the abortion drug mifepristone and chose not to rule on whether Idaho could ban abortions in emergency health care situations.

“The court saved the Republican Party from having, you know, particularly contentious abortion decisions being handed down before an election, but left it open for the court to come back to them a year or so later if a Democratic president wins. So it’s a bit of heads, I win, tails, you lose in those cases,” Huq said.

Administrative law

The court’s conservative majority, ruling 6-3 in three of the four cases, couched its decisions as a necessary step to reassert the judiciary’s responsibility to check the executive branch on Congress’ behalf.

In a decision overturning a 40-year-old precedent for courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that federal law bars the justices from “disregarding” their responsibility to decide what the laws mean.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Roberts wrote.

The decision means an uncertain and more difficult path for Congress to shape how the federal government carries out laws on major issues such as the environment, health, immigration and more, lawmakers and legal experts said.

The court’s Democrat-appointed justices have accused the conservative majority of a power grab. Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting in the administrative deference case, accused the majority of “judicial hubris.”

“In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law,” Kagan said.

Overall, the decisions will likely mean more court fights over the past and future of administrative rules, according to University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Kermit Roosevelt.

“These decisions work to take power away from the federal administrative agencies and shift power to judges,” Roosevelt said.

Kevin King, a partner at Covington & Burling, said those cases will combine to let judges decide more issues surrounding administrative law and could move many of those court cases out of Washington, D.C.

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent in a decision that allowed challenges to agency rules years after they are finalized, wrote the that court’s decisions would combine to unleash a “tsunami” of lawsuits objecting to long-standing federal rules.

“Doctrines that were once settled are now unsettled and claims that lacked merit a year ago are suddenly up for grabs,” Jackson said.

Still, the justices declined to go as far as the conservative-leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had in several major issues.

The justices reversed decisions from that court that would have invalidated a federal law banning certain domestic abusers from possessing guns, restricted access to medication abortion, invalidated a part of the 2017 tax law and rendered unconstitutional the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Those were some of the court’s most contentious cases, and Roosevelt said they showed the court’s intended focus.

“There are some things the Supreme Court is not willing to do, at least not yet, and maybe not ever,” Roosevelt said. “It is a question of how far they are willing to push it.”

Trump and election

The Supreme Court’s most prominent case this term dealt a serious blow to the criminal case brought by special counsel John L. “Jack” Smith alleging Trump attempted to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

Monday’s decision almost ensured that Trump will not face trial in that case before the 2024 election, as it sent the issue back to the trial court to decide whether the indictment covers Trump’s “official” acts as president.

Even in the Trump case, where the justices said presidents have a broad immunity to federal charges, Jackson pointed out in her dissent that the justices had given themselves the role of “gatekeeper” to decide whether a president could face trial over official acts outside the “core” of his presidential duties.

Huq said the decision may have done long-term damage to the country and it is difficult to see how it would be rolled back. He pointed out that even in its decision, the justices did not engage with the consequences of presidential immunity, such as the implied ability to order political assassinations.

“It’s really striking how the majority, in that case, you know, an openly or a self-evidently partisan majority, responds to those concerns with essentially nothing,” Huq said.

For next term, the justices have already started taking controversial cases, including fights over access to gender-affirming care for minors, the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate e-cigarettes, and access to pornography websites in Texas.

The justices could take up more contentious issues, such as gun regulation, the viability of Georgia’s state case against Trump and more in the coming months.

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Michelle Steel: Tax increases stifle California’s economy and harm working families

• July 4, 2024

California taxes continue to rain down on families thanks to a state government that thinks they know how to spend your money best. The latest hardship is yet another increase in the state gas tax, which now sits at a highest-in-the-nation 60 cents per gallon as families kickoff summer travel.

The increase is part of a years-old scheme to enlarge state government at the expense of taxpayers. After voters took the commonsense step in 2002 of requiring gas taxes to be used for actual transportation needs, liberal Sacramento politicians sidestepped voter wishes and swapped the traditional gasoline tax for a state excise tax on gasoline. They then set up a bureaucratic process to raise this tax annually, with proceeds propping up pet projects rather than solely supporting vital infrastructure.

It’s a shell game at its finest. Unfortunately, as is often the case in California, liberal politicians got their wish, and the tax continues to rise.

Southern California families deserve better. We already pay more in gas taxes than residents of any other state – a total of 78 cents per gallon when combined with federal taxes. And our current average price sits at $4.79 per gallon, compared to the national average of $3.50 per gallon.

As Governor, Gavin Newsom now owns this summer gas tax increase – and has the authority to stop it. But even in the face of California’s high state taxes and rampant inflation, he declined to suspend the gas tax hike that took effect on July 1.

Some of us tried to tell him. A May letter from California’s Republican delegation in Congress urged a suspension of the gas tax in light of the high cost of living already facing Californians. We also warned about an even higher increase in gas prices next year as anti-energy reforms from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) take effect.

These price increases come even as families struggle to afford basic necessities, with a recent report from the Joint Economic Committee finding that the average California household is spending $300 more per month than this time last year to maintain the same standard of living. This includes dramatic increases in food, housing, energy, and transportation-related expenses.

Californians are suffering enough under President Biden and Governor Newsom’s inflation. Now, Newsom’s tax hikes are making it unaffordable to drive, even as we already experience the highest retail gas prices in the nation. Rising gas taxes, along with high income and business taxes, continue to drive small businesses and middle-class Americans out of California.

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Unfortunately, the opportunity for voters to have their say on high taxes in has been silenced by Newsom’s allies in the judicial branch. Governor Newsom and legislative leaders successfully sued to remove the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act from the ballot this fall, which would have required the Legislature to receive voter approval for any new or higher state tax.

Such a provision would have made it more difficult to implement new taxes, such as the excise tax on gasoline which now rises every year on July 1. It is telling that our state’s leaders are afraid to give voters a say on issues affecting their own pocketbooks, which are feeling increasingly strained in the current economic environment.

Relief at the pump is essential for Californians, and I will continue fighting harmful state policies which worsen the toll of inflation for my constituents. Out of fairness to working families, Governor Newsom must suspend the state gas tax now.

Michelle Steel represents California’s 45th congressional district and serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

​ Orange County Register 

Lifeguards, cameras, all that water: 6 things to know about Idaho’s Roaring Springs Waterpark

• July 4, 2024

Elena Gastaldo | (TNS) The Idaho Statesman

A giant tipping potato bucket called Tippin’ Tater that contains 750 gallons of water. A grumpy ram lifeguard keeping an eye on everyone. Two baby bears sliding down a log. Blue birds on a diving board.

Camp IdaH2O, the latest expansion of Roaring Springs Waterpark, is a celebration of life in the Pacific Northwest, says Tiffany Quilici, the water park’s chief marketing officer.

Meridian is the home of the Northwest’s largest water park. And it just turned 25 years old.

Here are six things to know about the park:

1. It employs hundreds of teens.

The Treasure Valley’s largest employer of young adults, Roaring Springs has 700 employees. About 200 of those are lifeguards, who rotate from one attraction to the next every 20 to 30 minutes. ‘‘That really helps to keep them alert and vigilant,’’ Quilici said.

Lifeguards show up around 9:30 a.m. and ride test every attraction to make sure they are all safe for visitors to go on.

Only 10 employees work full time year round.

Quilici said it’s a privilege for the park to be the first workplace for many teens in the Valley. ‘‘We get to teach them and mentor them in all the qualities they need to launch their future dreams,’’ Quilici said.

The water park is open mid May through mid September and has welcomed 6 million visitors in the past 25 years of operation.

Roaring Springs Waterpark in Meridian, Idaho, is the Northwest’s biggest water park. It requires 700 employees to operate. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/TNS)

2. It uses a lot of water that it must keep clean.

On a typical day, the park’s operations team starts working at 6 a.m. and includes a crew of pressure washers cleaning the concrete.

Roaring Springs uses 1.5 million gallons of Meridian city water that circulates through the water park all season long. That’s enough to cover a football field 3½ feet deep. Like all Meridian city water, it comes from the water-bearing soil and rock of the Snake River Plain aquifer that underlies Ada County.

A certain amount of water gets lost to evaporation and when people walk out of pools and rides, so additional water is used every day. Aaron Forsythe, the water park’s operations manager, said the park takes in 10,000 to 15,000 gallons of water every day but ‘‘it’s hard to measure’’ exactly how much gets lost.

Quilici said the staff is ‘‘extremely vigilant about any leaks from pools and from slides.’’

The water goes through massive sand filter tanks and a chemistry process to keep it clean. Quilici said that the park also has ultraviolet lights that ‘‘kill every bug’’ in the water.

When asked about the park’s efforts to promote sustainability, Quilici said that they ‘‘certainly have some advanced energy efficiency devices in place to operate the pumps and motors at their optimal rate.’’ Deck drains at the end of the slides collect and recirculate water too, Forsythe said.

3. It uses a network of security cameras.

Roaring Springs was the first outdoor water park nationwide to install the Ellis Aquatic Vigilance System, which is supported by artificial intelligence and video analytics, a technology that uses a special algorithm to analyze digital videos and provide security-related services.

Cameras are installed throughout the park. They can see under water. Roaring Springs has two command centers with operators who are alerted through radios when a danger is perceived by one of the cameras.

Forsythe said Roaring Springs uses the cameras as an ‘‘extra layer of security’’ on top of the lifeguards.

4. Those teen employees get free passes and parties.

Employees get a free season pass, numerous half-off tickets for friends and family, and get to attend work-related parties ‘‘to make it a really fun social experience,’’ Quilici said.

Roaring Springs also has a scholarship program for employees in college. Quilici said that about $30,000 in scholarships was awarded last year.

A seagull perches on top of a cameras from Ellis Aquatic Vigilance System at Roaring Springs Waterpark in Meridian, Idaho. The system uses artificial intelligence to help identify dangers in the park. The camera can see under water. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/TNS)

5. Missing your dentures or wedding ring?

The park employees find lost items daily. Some of the more unique findings include a hammer, dentures, and a wedding ring. To get their belongings back, guests fill out a form and have one week to collect them. The park donates unclaimed items, Quilici said.

6. New attractions are planned.

Roaring Springs recently opened Class 5 Canyon, the Northwest’s first wave action river, which simulates a whitewater experience.

Quilici and the CEO Pat Morandi travel around the country, and sometimes the world, to try out new rides, get inspired by other water parks and bring back new attractions’ ideas for Idaho.

Camp IdaH2O is just the first of seven phases of Roaring Springs’ plan to expand. A major new water attraction will be added every two to three years for the next 10 years, Quilici said.

________

©2024 The Idaho Statesman. Visit idahostatesman.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register