This summer, the city is not staffing Goose Lake or Jewel Lake swimming beaches with lifeguards.
People enjoy a warm day at the Jewel Lake beach on Friday, June 21, in Anchorage. Because of a shortage of lifeguards, this year there are no lifeguards at Jewel Lake or Goose Lake, the city’s two developed swimming beaches, according to Mike Braniff, Anchorage’s parks and recreation director.
Eklund, who is originally from Finland and spent childhood summers swimming in lakes, got up and waded into the water. Parks and recreation staff removed shallow area buoys and lifeguard stands as visual cues that the beaches are not overseen by a lifeguard, he said. Warning signage that says no lifeguard is on duty has been posted.“We have been on a long downward trajectory in our ability to hire lifeguards and retain them,” Braniff said.
Braniff said he hadn’t heard about the reported near-drowning at Goose Lake other than through media questions. He said he hasn’t heard of any drownings at Anchorage lakes this summer. “It is absolutely not a budget issue,” he said. “It is not that we lack the funding, it’s simply the ability to be able to say, ‘We need to pay $20 an hour if we’re going to expect to fill positions’” and then quickly implement that, he said.
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