MISSOULA, MT - It's the ultimate childhood bummer: a great playground barricaded by a 6-foot-high chain-link fence.

“We like to bring our kid to play here,” parent Lance Fairbank said of the Westside Park playground next to Lowell Elementary School. “If kids are breaking their arms, there's no sense in having it open. But it sure is a teaser.”

Broken arms are the risk at the play fort's walkways, according to school and city officials. At least one child did just that last month after falling on a particularly slick ramp. After Lowell Principal Cindy Christensen contacted Missoula Parks and Recreation for advice, park superintendent Rob Thames investigated.
What he found was that in October, a volunteer crew sprayed the play fort with a wood preservative as part of regular annual maintenance. Some of the overspray got on the walkways, which are made of a composite wood-and-plastic material. Because the spraying took place late in the fall, the preservative didn't cure the way it usually does, Thames said. And the walkways took on a sort of varnish that made them extremely slippery.

“The volunteer group that did the spraying did a good job,” Thames said. “I think it's more a weather thing. We didn't have this situation last year, or at other playgrounds.”

Read more here.

Other tidbits from the article.

• Fixing the problem will take a power washer or perhaps a sand blaster. And that can't be done until the weather warms up - at least several consecutive days of 40-degree weather or better. Shoveling or spreading traction sand would not do the trick, Thames said. So the city decided to close the playground.