Neighborhood Pools Fight to Stay Afloat

I found this article a couple of months ago and thought that it might be appropriate to discuss here. I think that this is a somewhat scary issue and it doesn't bode well for the future of Masters swimming in the United States. What I mean by that is that 10 or 15 years from now, we (USMS) may have a hard time finding anyone to join our organization. People who didn't go to the pool regularly as kids are not going to be very likely to take up swimming as adults. I was not a competitive swimmer as a kid. But going to the pool was a daily summer ritual for me and my friends. While I wasn't trained in all of the competitive strokes, I could swim well enough to get from one end of the pool to the other and to go off the diving boards over and over again. I still get that same feeling of fun every time I go to the pool. But if I hadn't spent all that time at the pool as a kid, it's unlikely that I would have ever taken up the sport as an adult. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let you read the article. ----------------------------------------- Neighborhood Pools Fight to Stay Afloat Mon Jun 28, 7:08 PM ET By JENNIFER KAY, Associated Press Writer READING, Pa. (AP) - Around the country, neighborhood pools and swim clubs are closing or just treading water. Among the reasons: Pools built for baby boomers 30, 40 and 50 years ago are showing their age and need costly repairs, and swimming is dropping in popularity because of air conditioning, changing lifestyles and competition from other activities. Summer should have started Memorial Day weekend with a dip in the Wodenschiere Country Club pool. But the swim season was delayed a month because the 40-year-old pool needed new plumbing and board members had to scramble for the money amid a drop-off in membership. "When I was a kid that place was packed," recalled member John Conrad, 42. "Now there's no trouble finding a spot to sit in." Surveys by the National Sporting Goods Association show a steady decline since the 1980s in the number of Americans participating in recreational swimming: 47 million people ages 7 and older said they went swimming more than once in 2003, compared with 71 million in 1988. Potential home buyers are also less interested in having an outdoor swimming pool in their developments, according to the National Association of Home Builders. "In a two-income family, after working a full day, who feels like coming home and packing up the kids to go to the pool when you can come home and sit in your air conditioning?" said Sue Jacoby, board president at Wodenschiere, which had about 500 members and a waiting list when it opened in the 1960s but has dropped to around 200 in the past few years. In many communities, both municipal pools and neighborhood swim clubs are simply no longer the social hub they once were, cutting into revenue at the same time the pools need major maintenance. Chippewa Township, in western Pennsylvania, closed its pool in 2001 after officials concluded the upkeep and repairs were no longer worth it. "When they built the pool it was kind of the center of everything for the summer," said Township Manager Stephen Johnson. "Now the kids have driver's licenses, and they'd rather go hang out at the mall than go to the pool." Rainy summers like last year dampened already dwindling pool revenue in South Zanesville, Ohio, said Richard Guss, village administrator. When local voters failed to pass a half-percent tax increase this year, officials decided to close the public pool. "It was either shut the pool or lay off a police officer," Guss said. Officials in rural Lapel, Ind., dumped dirt into their 1960s-era pool in May. Their insurance premiums had jumped from less than $1,000 in 2002 to $14,746 last year, said Tom Tudor, clerk-treasurer. "There are some members on the council that think that someday if things would change we could dig all that out and patch the bottom and reopen it," Tudor said, "but I don't know if that day will ever come." Just patching leaks or fixing pipes in pools built 30 or 40 years ago will not attract new swimmers, said Scot Hunsaker, president of Counsilman/Hunsaker & Associates, a St. Louis firm that has designed more than 500 aquatics facilities nationwide. Families today expect water park amenities, such as water slides and sprays, not the traditional L-shaped pool designed for swim meets. "With a new aquatic facility today, we can double or triple attendance rates, because we're giving them a recreation experience, not just a competitive pool and telling them to play," Hunsaker said. Public and private pools have resorted to fund-raisers and cost-cutting to keep from going dry. The Ken Grill Recreation Center, a swim club outside Reading, is trying to do things on the cheap. Membership has declined so much — from 1,500 in the 1970s to 400 now — that dues barely cover costs, board president Roxanne Bugay said. The pool cut its payroll in half, and volunteer board members do landscaping and maintenance. "We used to have a plumber," Bugay said, "but now everybody who can do that sort of thing we get to help." =====