ADRIAN — The bad news just keeps piling up for Bohn Pool.
With the help of Fluid Loss Prevention, an Ohio company that uses ultrasonic detection and computer correlation equipment to find water leaks, city employees were able to identify the source of a leak that was detected in August. It turned out to be in a small service line underneath the pool, and the utilities department was able to cap the line as a temporary fix.
But then another leak was found in the surge pit, a reservoir that helps control the volume of the pool. Separately, a 14-inch return line was discovered to have cracked. And the pump for the waterslide, which is 15 years old and was rebuilt in 2019, has failed as well.
“We’re really starting to chase our tails,” parks and recreation director Jeremiah Davies told Adrian city commissioners at their Sept. 15 meeting.
Bohn Pool was built in the 1970s. Davies said it has been kept open long past a pool’s normal expected life with the help of careful management by staff members, but the problems keep escalating. Even if the leaks are fixed, he said, the pool liner is bulging badly and there’s no guarantee it will make it to next summer.
City commissioners voted 7-0 to have the parks and recreation department stop spending money on pool fixes, and instead pursue partnerships with other community organizations to make sure services like swimming lessons are available to Adrian children next summer.
Davies said he had already spoken with Adrian Public Schools athletic director Chad O’Brien about the possibility of using the Adrian High School pool if the need arose, and that O’Brien was willing to help.
Mayor Angela Sword Heath, who is the director of the Adrian Community Preschool, said most of the children she teaches learned to swim at Bohn Pool and that their families can’t afford lessons at The Centre or the YMCA. And with the YMCA being located in the ProMedica Hickman Hospital campus north of town, she said, “it’s hard sometimes for families to get out there.” She said she would prefer Adrian High School because it’s in the city.
Commissioners also discussed the idea of installing splash pads in more city parks.
Bohn Pool has typically operated at a deficit of about $70,000 per season, a number that Davies said rose to about $90,000 this year. Meanwhile, as of a few years ago, the cost to install a splash pad was about $130,000. Those numbers caused commissioners to wonder if splash pads might be a better investment than a new pool.
Attendance numbers have been declining, and Davies said that’s a trend that many communities around the country have seen at their municipal pools.
Still, some commissioners are not ready to completely give up on the idea of Adrian continuing to have a public pool.
“We are a community surrounded by a river and lakes,” commissioner Mary Roberts said. “Children in this community, unless they can afford The Centre, are not exposed to swimming lessons, to swimming, until ninth grade at Adrian High School.”
Roberts said she doesn’t want to continue spending money on repairs to Bohn Pool given its current condition, but also doesn’t want to stop talking about whether a public pool is a resource the community wants.
“I understand we may need to close the pool for a couple of years,” she said, “but I do not want this conversation to go away.”
Roberts also noted that the Fee Estate, which was established by the late Harriet Kimball Fee for the beautification of city parks, cannot be used to build a pool, although earnings from the city’s oil and has trust fund, which have been paying for the most recent projects at the pool, can be.
Commissioner Bob Behnke noted that although completely rebuilding Bohn Pool would be expensive, taking the pool out and restoring the grounds would not be cheap either.
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