While the annual maintenance on the Bonnyville Swimming Pool was slated to last two weeks, the project has been delayed to the end of the month.
“We’ve got the pool drained, and we’re working on things like grouting between tile repair, repainting areas around the pool deck, and fixtures that need repainting,” explained town assistant CAO Bill Rogers. “Just general maintenance activities, cleanings, and things like that we do every year as part of the process.”
The maintenance on the salt water pool started on Sept. 4, and was anticipated to take anywhere from two to four weeks.
Bonnie Wood, corporate health and safety manager for the town, said a tentative completion date of Sept. 15 was provided, but it’s looking like Sept. 30 will be when everything will be ready for residents to dive back in.
One phase that caused some of the delays was waiting for a contractor to replace the drains in the main and smaller pools to align with new mandates. Alberta Health Services (AHS) requires pools to replace old drains as part of the new anti-entrapment policy to prevent swimmers from getting caught.
“(AHS) wants them switched out by Nov. 30 this year. We figured, ‘why not do them now?’” Wood noted.
Due to the high demand on contractors to get the work done in pools across the province, the local facility faced delays while waiting for someone to become available.
While everything else was going according to plan, getting salt proved to be another aspect that pushed back the completion date.
“We had an issue getting salt because every pool in Alberta is doing shutdown at the same time, so our supplier’s out of salt,” detailed acting pool supervisor Dana Mugford.
In anticipation of the month-long project, activities at the pool weren’t scheduled to start until October.
“(Dana) booked the lessons later, just in case, because it’s easier that way than having to call back a bunch of parents and change everything,” Wood explained.
September and January are usually when the shutdown occurs, which Mugford described as slow times for the facility.
“It’s not summer, so people don’t want to use the pool. It’s back to school, schools don’t want to do lessons, so it’s our quiet time…. If we have to drain, I don’t want to do it in January. If you drain, it’s going to freeze to the road, and 98 per cent of pools in Alberta choose September.”
In order to keep the facility in tip-top shape, the town addresses maintenance projects annually.
“Being a salt water pool, there’s activities you have to do every year because salt water likes to corrode metal. It likes to make painted fixtures rusty and things like that,” Rogers detailed. “It’s an easier and safer pool to maintain from the point of view of treating it with chemicals, but at the same time, the downside is that you have to be very up on your maintenance. It’s necessary to have ongoing preventative maintenance to prevent break downs.”
With all the work happening this time around, Wood hopes next year’s shutdown will be a short one.
The goal is to have everything completed by Sept. 30. Mugford said if everything is finished earlier, the pool will reopen at that time.
