$1 including gst
Your LOCAL Media since 1918! Volume 106 Issue 11
www.tofieldmerc.com
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Ryley Pool officially re-opens Jana Semeniuk Staff Reporter
Ryley’s public swimming pool has finally re-opened Nov. 1 after nearly six months of closure due to shipping delays for equipment parts. Pool manager Susie Williams said all swimming lessons, including those for approximately 400 children over the summer, had to be cancelled as a result of the closure. “The main pump for the circulation of the water went down in May and we couldn’t just buy the parts anywhere,” said Williams, adding they also decided to switch out the old cast iron pump for a new stainless steel one that would last longer. “(The part) used to be (available) all over, right now Sweden is (the) place where we got the part from.” Williams said the pool, built in 1976, is 25 meters long and 11 meters wide with depths ranging from three to 12 feet. She said that so many kids missing out on their swimming lessons this year was a sad reality of the situation. “Last summer we taught 400 kids swim-
ming lessons. So there’s 400 kids that hopefully got to other pools, but with the other pools being so busy all the time, I'm sure there's a lot of kids that were left out,” she said. “There's lots of people that have asked ‘are you going to run swimming lessons during the winter?’ But no, we can't (because) we don't have enough staff and kids to run it. We used to do it all the time, but once hockey (starts) we don't get enough kids (and) it’s not feasible to run the set of lessons during the winter. It's just not cost effective.” Although Williams said the pool has been tested and is ready to use, she said the hot tub isn’t quite there yet. “We’re still having problems with that so it probably won’t be open for another week,” she said. Meanwhile, another completed project at the pool that has staff excited is the newly built enclosure around the pool’s outdoor sidewalk with a new roof, walls and door. Williams said it was a long time coming and will improve safety for some of their senior swimmers. “This has been coing
The Ryley Pool re-opened Nov. 1 after being shut down for nearly six months due to a downed pump. Parts for the pump were finally found in Sweden and took several weeks to arrive. JANA SEMENIUK PHOTO
for years. The sidewalk has been terrible with (snow) drifts and sometimes the drifts would be very high and hard as a rock,” she said. “We have a lady who is 90 (years old) and comes to swim all the time. She’s come for years ever since the pool was built and last winter she never came because the sidewalk was so dangerous.” Although final numbers on the cost of the project have not come in yet, Williams said it was funded by a donation from Bathgate Water Co-op.
A project to build an enclosure around the Ryley Pool's sidewalk, complete with a new roof, wall, and door, is complete with the exception of lights that will soon be installed. Photo: Jana Semeniuk