For the last month the Cook County Community YMCA swimming pool seemed to have a high tide and low tide, as water levels fluctuated.
In reality, the water was leaking out of the pool and then being replaced automatically.
From May 20 to June 20 the Cook County YMCA swimming pool lost more than one million gallons of water, said Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Water and Sewer Director Tom Nelson.
Nelson said his PUC crew discovered the leak when they were completing random meter checks on water usage throughout the city. They made their find around the 14th or 15th of June, and the county’s maintenance director, Brian Silence was notified.
By then the pool had lost between 800,000 to 900,000 gallons of water, Nelson said.
“I noticed around Memorial Day at the water plant that there was an uptick in water consumption at the pool,” Nelson told the PUC board on June 21.
But Nelson’s observation followed on the heels of the mid- May closing, draining, cleaning, refilling and heating of the pool, which took about 10 days to accomplish, said Silence.
On Wednesday, June 15, Silence had a chance to go to the pool and he immediately suspected a valve had somehow remained open after the pool had been cleaned and then refilled.
Silence retained the services of a scuba diver who swam to the bottom of the 10-foot-deep pool and found that a rock had gotten stuck in the mechanical valve that helps the pool drain and kept the valve open. The diver had to take off the drain cap and found the rock stuck in the valve three feet below the pool’s bottom.
“It was a really big job to get the rock out of there,” Silence said.
“This was the first time that the pool had been drained and cleaned since it was opened,” said Silence when reached on June 22. “After we drained the pool [mid-May] we checked some pipes, pulling them apart and found gravel in some of them and even a screwdriver left over from the construction.
“When we went to fill the pool back up I’m sure a piece of gravel—a rock— pushed out of one of the pipes and got stuck in the valve. I have ordered more replacement valves in case this happens again.”
The water lost from the pool went straight into the storm sewer, said Nelson.
PUC Board Member Tim Kennedy asked that Nelson contact Silence and have him send a letter to request that the PUC forgive a portion of what had grown into a very large bill.
“This is standard procedure when something like this happens,” said Kennedy.
Nelson suggested the PUC forgive 900,000 gallons of water that had drained into the storm sewer but charge the Y for the replacement water that had to be used to constantly raise the pool level back to normal. PUC Secretary Jan Smith said if nothing was done, the bill would run around $21,000 for the month if the electric bill was added to it, but after adjusting it and forgiving most of the leaked water, it should be approximately $7,000 for the month.
Nelson said it was unknown at this time what the cost was for the propane used to fuel the pool’s heaters that reheated the replacement water, but some swimmers have complained over the last month that the water is colder than normal. Silence said the water temperature was back to normal on June 21.
Over the course of the month some regular swimmers noticed the water would get lower in the pool by 4-5 inches, then refill to its normal height. Silence said the pool is equipped with an automatic refill that keeps the water level at its normal depth, but he added that the pool attendants should have noticed the fluctuation in water levels and notified the county sooner.
Cook County owns the YMCA building and the YMCA sets up and runs programs and manages the space. School District 166 also partners with the county to share in the cost of heating and originally provided some indoor and outdoor maintenance, with the Y also sharing in that cost and labor. To help ensure that the YMCA is properly taken care of, the Cook County Board of Commissioners recently authorized hiring a fulltime person to perform custodial duties at the Y.
In the meantime, Silence said he is taking an online class in pool maintenance so he can help troubleshoot mechanical failures should they occur again at the YMCA pool.
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