WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Beating the heat was more difficult than expected over the weekend in Watertown. That’s because no one could take a dip in city pools.
As temperatures rose to 90 degrees over the weekend, there was no relief for Watertown residents as all three city pools were closed Sunday.
“I know that it was extremely warm yesterday and obviously people were upset that they didn’t have a way to get to the pool,” said Lisa Ruggiero, city council member.
Alteri Pool at the Fairgrounds isn’t scheduled to open until June 28. The northside’s Flynn Pool isn’t set to open at all this summer. The city’s newest pool at Thompson Park is open. However, it was closed for repairs on Sunday.
“The problem was a pressure switch. So that’s been resolved and they are rebalancing the chemicals right now,” said Ruggiero.
The $3.1 million pool at Thompson Park opened in 2020. The fact that the two-year-old pool is already in need of repairs is raising eyebrows in the community.
“We’ve had a lot of questions about it but I think what we are trying to do is to get the information out to the public so that everybody knows what happened, why it happened. So the people aren’t wondering why the pool is closed on a weekend,” said Cliff Olney, city council member.
While the timing was bad, the pool’s closure won’t last long.
Mayor Jeff Smith says just because something is new, you can’t expect everything to go swimmingly.
“You hope it’s just something minor. It’s the newest pool and you know minor things can happen. You get a new car and you can have a mechanical issue,” he said.
The Thompson Park pool will be back open Tuesday. Alteri will open for the season that day, too.
City officials looked at opening Alteri sooner, but say finding staff was too difficult.
Copyright 2022 WWNY. All rights reserved.
