Damakant Jayshi
Days before the Weston Aquatic Center is set to open, officials say a recently discovered leak is causing tens of thousands of gallons of chemically treated water to seep into the ground on a daily basis.
The loss at the Kennedy Park facility, 5815 Alta Verde St., is about 16 gallons per minute. If the park remains open without a repair for the entire season, more than 2 million gallons will be lost, officials said.
At an emergency joint meeting Wednesday of the Weston Board of Trustees and the Parks and Recreation Committee, officials chose a ‘wait and see’ approach, with a scuba diver inspecting hydrostatic valves in the pool on Thursday. The pool’s season opener is set for June 4.
During Wednesday’s meeting, some officials questioned whether the pool should open as planned or wait until the leak is repaired. One official in attendance said he was scared to death thinking about the repercussions should the surface of the pool collapse because of the leak, which is confirmed to be in the pool and not in the surrounding pipes. From an engineering standpoint, “heavy weight on soft soil can result in collapse of ground, resulting in a sinkhole,”according to Conserve Energy Future.
Hours before the meeting, Director of Parks and Recreation, Shawn Osterbrink held a discussion with the pool company, Neuman Pools Inc. to review the situation, Village of Weston Administrator, Keith Donner, told Wausau Pilot & Review.
Osterbrink said company officials were not alarmed by the leak, which they characterized as “not unusual.” The leak was detected last Thursday.
But if debris is causing a leak in the hydrostatic valve, a diver is capable of removing it, Osterbrink said during the meeting. The diver can also repair the valve but the village would need to provide necessary repair tools. Those can be fetched in a day, he said.
The leakage and associated impact of chemically treated water in the soil comes amidst detection of higher level of PFAS chemicals in Well No. 3 of the village, which was shut down again last Friday.
The emergency meeting was held to discuss next steps. One of the options they discussed was to let the water park remain operational for the summer or shut it down until repairs are complete. Though trustees and committee members were concerned about the leak, officials chose not to make a formal decision on disrupting the water park’s scheduled opening, deeming the issue an operational matter to be dealt with by village staff.
The water park opened in June 1999 and includes a 301-foot water slide. More than 350,000 gallons of 80-degree water fill the pool in water that ranges from zero depth to 12 feet. The water park can hold more than 850 people.
