Our weekend hint of spring weather brought hundreds of people out to Louisville's Waterfront Park.
But that led to some problems with cleanliness involving the park's temporary bathroom facilities.
It was the nicest day so far of 2010 with Sunshine, a high in the mid 60's. All enough to bring hundreds of visitors to Waterfront Park.
But unlike during the dog days of summer, when nature calls this time of year, the doors to the permanent facilities are all locked and the only portable toilet in sight is just now thawing out from one snowfall after another.
“The Waterfront Development, they plowed the snow in front of the toilets,” said B.J. Davis, owner of Moon Portable Restrooms. “It's been hard to get access to them.”
The sudden weekend thaw led to what they call in the portable toilet business “a perfect storm”.
“You get two or three thousand people in a weekend with one toilet. When they go from eight toilets to one, you can imagine how it can get to capacity,” said Davis.
Within three inches of the toilet seat, is how a parent who e-mailed us described it.
When we checked it out today, it wasn't pretty.
No toilet paper, no hand sanitizer, and plenty of things we don't want to describe filling the bowl.
Soon after, we called Waterfront Development and Moon Portable Restrooms came out to clean up.
Owner B.J. Davis says keeping portable toilets shiny and clean is a challenge, even with weekly services.
“You'll see a lot of bums down here,” he said. “And this is their primary source of being able to go to the bathroom and stay out of the weather. It's dry.”
“It's something that nobody thinks about until you have to go to the bathroom,” said Davis.
Waterfront Development has decided to double the number of portable restrooms available after Sunday's perfect storm and the related complaints.
But employees remind park goers that before the main facilities are open, it's probably a better bet to answer the call of nature before leaving home.
We spoke to Waterfront Development about when the permanent facilities would likely be open again. They said not until the threat of the last hard freeze of the winter has passed. Most years, that’s around early April.
