Staff at the Sam Ketcham Pool in Williams Lake are just as excited to get into the newly renovated water slide and leisure pool as the public are, said Geoff Paynton, the City’s director of community services.
“As soon as it’s humanly possible and it’s safe, we want to get people in there.”
On Wednesday, Nov. 22 staff were filling the leisure pool after a slight re-tiling hold up a couple days prior. After the water goes in, which according to Paynton, if done properly should take approximately 2 days, the next step is to treat the water.
Although the water may have a slight green tint to it when originally pumped into the pool, Paynton insisted that this is just the nature of Williams Lake water. After heating and treatment, the pool water will be the sparkling blue we’ve come to expect in our leisure activities.
Interior Health did an inspection last Friday and although they haven’t yet announced their results, Paynton noted that they don’t expect any issues with the report. Once they receive the report, which is estimated to take a week or two, they’ll have the green light to open the leisure pool and lazy river.
In order to open the water slide, which has already undergone extensive testing, the pool needs to receive their water slide permit from Technical Safety BC. A couple days after getting their permits, they’ll launch a soft opening of the phase two renovation project.
After the soft launch, which will help facilitate further training of the staff and maintenance crews the pool will host a grand opening where they can pay due respects to the many community members and organizations that have helped bring this vision to reality.
Aside from the obvious excitements of opening the second section of the pool, there are also a couple of extra additions to be enthusiastic about. One of these additions is RGB lighting in the pool below water level. The lights, which can be controlled via Bluetooth can provide some pretty thrilling results according to Paynton.
“We can put the lights orange to celebrate Halloween or if we’re having a screening of Jaws we can turn the water red.”
He also notes that the aqua blue lights in the crystal clear water is a particularly astonishing sight. So, get your swim suits ready to go and stand by for the opening as soon as they have their permits in hand, hopefully in early December.
The first section of the renovations, which included the lap pool and fitness centre opened on Oct. 16.
paige.mueller@wltribune.com
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