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Pocono News Section
Community Pools Struggling to Stay Afloat
Community Pools Struggling to Stay Afloat - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 5:55PM EST
Reported by: Jeremy Deebel
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 @ 05:55pm EST
Watsontown, Northumberland County and Montoursville, Lycoming County-
Thousands in our area spend the scorching summer months cooling off at community pools. But rising costs and limited funding have many of them in danger of shutting down. Two local pools, as well as many others, are struggling to stay afloat.
Watsontown Mayor Bob Brown never wanted to see the borough's 40-year-old pool shut down. Neither did council members. "We have $50,000 in our budget each year to keep the pool going, and that's not enough," Brown lamented.
The lack of available money and an aging, deteriorating facility mean that, for at least this year, nobody will be swimming here at the community pool.
"At some point or another, you have to say, hey, we don't have enough money to do this. And that's exactly what's happening," Brown explained.
The burden on Watsontown's tiny tax base aside, Brown says the patchwork repairs done on the pool in recent years were simply acting as a Band-Aid. He estimates bringing the pool up to current requirements could cost more than half a million dollars.
He added, "It's like a home or anything else, if you don't keep up with it, at some point, it's going to catch up with you."
A leaking liner and other malfunctions nearly led officials in Montoursville to close their community pool. Only recently did they decide to approve the money to make the necessary repairs.
Repairs that cost the borough $12,000, this year alone.
Montoursville Streets and Water Commissioner Frank Tallman said, "The cost of almost everything--chemicals and everything else we use--has risen. And that makes the cost of running a pool more expensive."
For small communities like Watsontown and Montoursville, the costs are hard to swallow. Yearly memberships at the Montoursville pool have gone up to help offset the burden on taxpayers.
The pool is set to open in about two weeks, but officials admit they don't know how long they can continue to operate without more help. "We're trying to keep it open year by year, and we'll see what happens," Tallman added.
The operators of the community pools we spoke with say they rarely turn any profit, and hope just to break even each year.
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