The City of New Westminster will close down Canada Games Pool later this year to get it ship shape.
Dean Gibson, the city's director of parks, culture and recreation, said the city undertakes routine maintenance on the pool each year that normally takes a week or two to complete, but needs to do a fairly major maintenance program every five to seven years. That work, which is taking place this year, will require the pool to be closed for five to seven weeks.
"We are doing maintenance on the pool tank," Gibson said. "If we are not draining it, we are lowering the level of the water."
Because of the extent of work taking place, the pool will be closed while the maintenance is done. The city has approved $515,000 for the work.
"We typically schedule this for the late summer/ early September," Gibson said. "That is historically one of our slower periods of the year."
Gibson noted that's a time when a lot of people are preparing for back to school. The city's outdoor pools are also open until Labour Day.
One of the projects to be undertaken as part of the maintenance is replacement of the 10-metre diving tower.
"That has to be disassembled and reconstructed this year," Gibson said. "It has come to the end of its service life. That's a fairly significant item."
Some of the "behind the scenes" work includes replacement or renewal of portions of the filtration pits, which are the large concrete tanks in the ground that were built when the pool was constructed.
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