Thirsty Park Slopers are paying a pretty penny for freeze resistant water fountains in Prospect Park.
Residents voted to spend a whopping $175,000 on five drinking fountains that will flow whether or not the mercury dips — even though meteorologists say such days were few and far between in recent years.
Brooklyn City Councilman Brad lander included the fountains in his 2016 participatory-budgeting, which lets residents decide annually how to allocate $1 million among various projects.
Lander and Prospect Park Alliance President Sue Donoghue took bows during a Thanksgiving Day activation of the first “frost-resistant” drinking fountains — but some gave the sipping spots an icy reception.
“It’s disgraceful and wasteful,” fumed state Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long. “They don’t care how they spend people’s money. In this case, they’re spending like water with no concern.”
Carol Brooks, of nearby Carroll Gardens, slammed the fountains in online comments calling them “an outrageous and ridiculous expenditure.”
Lander defended the cost of the $35,000-apiece fountains, whose waterlines are buried deep enough to avoid icing over in winter.
“People who use the park in the winter — for exercise, for their kids to play, for fresh air, for mental health — definitely believe these 5 new freeze-resistant drinking fountains are worth $175,000 of their shared tax funds,” he said.
There were 12 days in 2016 where the temperature was at or below freezing and 18 such days in 2017, according to readings taken in Central Park, a National Weather Service spokesman told The Post.