In a hot summer day, for those far from the beach, or a lake, there is always the fire hydrant. But open hydrants waste water and make it hard for firefighters to do their jobs. That's why the city is trying to get more people to take advantage of a safer alternative that allows them to open hydrants just a little.
A fitted cap with a few holes in it can make a gentle and legal sprinkler out of a regular hydrant that would normally gush when opened. The city’s been distributing these sprinkler caps (also called spray caps) for decades. But Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland says New Yorkers still need to be reminded about them.
"An illegally opened hydrant pumps out 1000 gallons per minute," he said. "It’s really a torrent, and that is wasteful water. It’s also dangerous, can knock kids over and flood the street."
Anyone 18 or older can ask their local firehouse to install a cap. The DEP now sends out teams of young people each summer to tell New Yorkers about the spray caps, and to explain why it’s illegal to open a fire hydrant and what to do if they see one flooding their street.
On a scorching hot day in July, members of the Hydrant Education Action Team roamed around Inwood Park with flyers in Spanish and English.
"Give me one fact of a fire hydrant being open," 20-year-old Jefry Ortiz asked a couple of teens.
"Oh, that it wasted the water so that when there’s a fire then you can’t use it," said 15-year-old Rewell Ramirez.
Ortiz smiled and raised his hand for a high five.
There are 48 high school and college students working for HEAT through the summer youth employment program. They’ve been walking around the Bronx and Washington Heights, which DEP says are hot spots for open hydrants.
The city claims the outreach program’s working because the number of complaints about open fire hydrants fell from nearly 30,000 during the summer of 2005 to just under 22,000 last year. This year, about 14,000 calls came in during June and the first three weeks of July.
The outreach workers are up against one big obstacle, though: open hydrants are a lot of fun.
On East 149th Street in the South Bronx, the icy blast of an open hydrant was a welcome oasis from the baking heat on a recent weekday. A few neighborhood kids took turns playing while an adult named Harold Walker looked on before joining them in the water.
"You got to be, I guess creative," he said, as he straddled the hydrant and sat right into the gushing water. He said some people use a can to direct the spray, but he used his knees.
Eleven-year-old Serena Warren ventured next to the hydrant and tried to fill up a bucket. But it went flying into the two-way traffic because of the strength of the water. She squealed and chased after the bucket, being careful to avoid cars.
"It’s fun but it’s hard," she said.
The students doing outreach also think kids, in particular, need to see that sprinkler caps aren’t a big, well, damper.
On Academy Street in Inwood last month, the local Police Athletic League got the fire department to turn on a hydrant with a sprinkler cap.
Ten-year-old Alanna Criss ran into the arc of water created by the fire hydrant as friends joined her. When asked how it compared to the gushing hydrants she sometimes sees in the neighborhood, she said, "It’s pretty much the same but this is a little funner."
The reason? She said she didn't have to worry about getting hurt.