Ted Johnston is keeping his fingers crossed that the interactive water play  feature at Mistlin Sports Park will be up and running this weekend.
“We had hoped to have it going again back on the Fourth (of July) but ran into some problems,” said the City of Ripon’s Public Works Director on Thursday.
By that, he revealed the problem to be in the water pumps. A few were out due in part to a year of inactivity.
Johnston indicated that the city staff spent this past week working on the fountain, looking to remedy the problem.
“There’s no promise that we’ll have it entirely fixed this weekend – we might be able to get some of the (water jets) running,” he said.
 The city-owned and operated interactive water feature is scheduled to be opened Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. during the summer months.
It’ll go to a two-day a week schedule, going on Saturday and Sunday once classes resume in August.
The fountains will be closed during the fall and winter months beginning on Nov. 1.
The Ripon City Council narrowly approved the return of the fountain at last week’s special session.
Elected leaders passed a mandatory water conservation measures about a year ago. Included was a part prohibiting the use of water in fountains or other decorative water feature except those that “support aquatic life.”
Since then, the water fountain at Mistlin Sports Park has remained dry.