Jeffersonville Community Pool successfully opened in June after a major leak delayed the Memorial Day weekend opening.
The community pool was scheduled to open May 26 but just days before the opening, Jeffersonville Mayor Bob Kinzer noticed a leak — 20,000 gallons of water had been lost.
A professional service was able to detect the leak inside the stainless steel gutter system. Water was leaking from a supply tube and behind the metal plating into the drain system behind the wall, and from there draining into the creek, said Kinzer. The stainless steel gutter system along the edge of the pool had to be cut into and welded in order to access and repair the leak.
The cost of that repair was $1,535, according to the bill submitted to the Village of Jeffersonville by Holloway Welding. The cost included the materials and 20 hours of labor to build a scaffolding system into the pool to access, cut, fix, and weld the system back together, said Kinzer.
To make the repair, the nearly 200,000 gallons of water inside the pool had to be drained. Once the repair was complete, the pool was refilled with another 200,000 gallons of treated water, which factors as an additional cost to fix the pool, said Kinzer, who said this isn’t the first time the pool’s system has sprung a leak just before opening.
Now Jeffersonville’s village administration is in preliminary discussions about a replacement of the pool’s water supply tubing and stainless steel gutter system.
“We would like to replace the entire system so that it doesn’t continue to fail,” said Kinzer in an interview Wednesday. “It’s stressful on everybody. People depend on that pool for summer. It’s like vacation for them.”
Kinzer said that if the village decides to move forward with the system replacement, they will have to ask for bids to begin the process.
“It all depends on the cost of it and we have to see what the actual costs are. We’ve had problems with it in the past, where it has sprung a leak near opening time, and we have to drain the pool and fix it,” said Kinzer. “We don’t want to have to keep doing that.”
