But the big question is whether the work can be finished in time to have the pool ready for swimmers before the summer season ends.
The Town Council directed Town Manager Reagan Parsons to see whether stopgap repairs could be made to get the pool open this summer.
The council agreed in May to close the pool, mainly because of declining usage. The 40-year-old pool needs extensive repairs and does not meet health and safety codes.
A large contingent of residents of West Southern Pines attended the council’s June 14 meeting to urge the town to keep the pool open.
Contractors said at a Monday meeting with committee members and town officials that it could take them 30 to 45 days to complete the work, if everything goes smoothly.
Before the town can reopen the pool, it must meet health and safety codes. Moore County Environmental Health Supervisor Terry McNeill also must sign off on a permit, Parsons said at the meeting at the pool.
The Town Council can expedite some things, such as a required architectural review and approval of plans for the project that could be submitted at a special meeting, Parsons said. The building permit could also be put on the fast track, he said.
The town must hire lifeguards, who are also certified to mix pool chemicals, which could prove difficult this late in the swimming season, according to town Parks and Recreation Director David White.
“The pump and filters we have now do not allow us to meet health standards,” White said. “We put a flow meter on it at the end of the 2004 season, and it doesn’t meet the once-every six-hour turnover rate, but probably recycles every 10 to 11 hours.”
If the correct flow could be met with a new pump and four filters, he said, the system would be able to clean the water sufficiently to meet codes.
“We need to scrap the whole system and go to one that will recycle the water a minimum of every six hours,” White told the group.
White later said in an interview that the new equipment with a 7.5-horsepower motor and four filters that would replace the old equipment would also require more space. The town will have to replace a three-sided cover with a new four-sided, weather-tight enclosure. The existing enclosure, which was grandfathered in, doesn’t meet current safety codes.
The new equipment and enclosure would cost about $25,000, according to White.
McNeill said later in an interview that if the new equipment can meet the six-hour recycling requirement, he could issue a health permit to open the pool.
Tessie Carpenter, president of the West Southern Pines Civic Group, is employed by First-Health of the Carolinas in Pinehurst. She said she might be able to get some volunteers from the Fitness Center to help out as lifeguards and mixing pool chemicals.
The repair work is not complicated or difficult, said Pat Quick, owner of Sandhills Building Systems. It would involve several companies and the work will have to be inspected.
The water lines under the pool are a variety of sizes, ranging from four inches to 1.5 inches, said Chip Sanders, owner of Pools Etc. of Aberdeen, said, who has carried out previous inspections. No one can say for sure what shape these are in.
“The program we’re talking about wouldn’t let the kids be in the pool until next summer,” said committee member Angela Cherry, who lives on Gaines Street.
But the Rev. Gentry Winfield said “work can be started” and that “the community wants to see something happening. If it takes 30 days, at least the kids might be able to get in a month before they have to go back to school.”
While the pool is closed for repair, children could play under the town’s sprinklers that irrigate the grass at the Pool Park, someone suggested.
The work being done now is temporary just to get the pool opened. Additional work will be needed for the town to keep the open beyond this summer, McNeill said.
The 2006 safety codes require an anti-entrapment drain cover and a safety vacuum release, which the pool lacks.
