City of Omaha officials say they are doing what they can to keep the city's public golf courses green during the hot, dry spell.

Bob Baber, manager of the city's golf courses and tennis facilities, said Wednesday that there was a small positive to be found in the drought.

"The grass isn't growing as fast," he said, "so we're doing a lot of other stuff, like trimming the trees at Elmwood (golf course)."

Greens crews continue to water overnight, Baber said, and then hit targeted areas during the day.

"We're chasing down a lot of the hot spots during the day," he said.

Some isolated locations that sprinkler systems can't reach are being soaked during the day with hoses and sprinklers, Baber said.

"This heat is taking a toll," he said. "You've just got to wait this out. You try to do what you can."

Any turf that is lost to the heat or goes dormant, Baber  said, will be reseeded in the fall.

The city's public parks, such as Elmwood and Memorial, are not watered, for the most part, he said. However, certain areas of some parks, such as flower gardens at the Gerald R. Ford Memorial and Mount Vernon Gardens, have limited irrigation, Baber said.

Trucks with water tanks, he said, are used at smaller city parks with gardens.

Plants aren't the only things being watered during the heat wave. At public swimming pools, he said, life guards water down pool decks to keep them as cool as possible.

Patrons to the city's splash parks are on their own and need to be aware of how hot benches and metal objects are right now, Baber said. Since splash parks are basically tall faucets spraying water over flat areas with drains, there are no life guards on duty.

Last weekend, a toddler suffered burns on the bottoms of her feet when she strayed onto a hot metal plate at a splash park, he said.

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402-444-1259, jay.withrow@owh.com