Weyburn mayor says city will ‘get through’ indefinite pool closure

By Natasha Wiebe

The indefinite closure of the Weyburn Leisure Centre’s indoor pool was a shock to the community despite temporary closures over the past few years.

Mayor Jeff Richards said it was a shock to the city as well, as they were in talks to begin planning for a new pool in another five years.

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“We did have a consulting firm come in recently in the last couple years and say to us ‘You’re probably going to get about 10 more years out of that pool, and then it’s not going to be any good,’ which is kind of lined up with traditionally, what a pool would last. So we thought ‘OK, let’s get our act together here and start planning for the next one.’”

He said the city hoped the existing pool would remain functional until the new one was built, but that wasn’t the case.

Premature failures in the pool structure are what ultimately brought about the pool’s demise. Ground-penetrating radar revealed rebar underneath the pool deck and basin failed after pool staff noticed a leak draining 32,000 litres of water in a single day. Richards described it as a “catastrophic failure.”

“We bring down structural engineers so that we aren’t making bad decisions. The engineers that we had down – and we never just bring one, we’ll make sure we get, like a doctor, you’re going to get a couple of opinions – they said that is not structurally sound. You cannot be in there, period. You cannot be on the pool deck. You cannot put water in that pool. It’s structurally unsound. That’s terrible news.”

He explained that the issues with the pool are fundamentally different than the issues with the rink, which is currently undergoing repairs related to a faulty ice chiller.

“The rink is terrible news, but ice chillers can be brought in and put back in. That pool needs to be replaced. We don’t know what ‘replaced’ looks like,” he said.

Richards examined the issues with the lack of an indoor facility, noting “that does take us back to a one-pool community, which a lot of communities our size are, but we don’t want to be that. We want to have the best services here for our people, because we deserve that.”

He encouraged the community, reminding residents that the city’s outdoor pool will be up and running as soon as the weather permits.

“We will get through this,” the mayor said. “Once we get some options we will engage the community. We’ll engage the user groups, just like we did with the Spark Center. We didn’t rush into that, either. We will engage the community to say ‘What do you think we should be doing for the next 30 years for a pool for Weyburn?’ And I don’t know what the answer is going to be. In fact, I’m kind of excited, but this winter is going to be tougher than normal.”