SEQUIM — Now that the high school girls swim team has finished using it, the pool at the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center has been drained.
The exercise center at 610 N. Fifth Ave., known as SARC, was closed Oct. 30 for an indefinite period, citing a lack of funds.
The center contains the city’s only public pool.
The pool had been kept in a semi-operational state through Thursday to allow the Sequim High School girls swim team to finish out the season.
The $7,500 donation came from the SARC Foundation, a recently established 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Once practices were completed, the pool was drained for the winter.
The pool and the rest of SARC are being kept in a standby mode, said Frank Pickering, board chairman.
“We are winterizing” SARC, but “it is set up to be reactivated,” he said.
Clallam County Fire District No. 3 personnel lent a helping hand Friday, using an engine tender, hose and nozzle.
“The key thing was we were able to call the fire department
. . . and they volunteered to come down and do a little training by pumping out our pool,” Pickering said.
The facility could reopen if a potential partnership with the Clallam County Family YMCA materializes, Pickering has said.
A feasibility study for a proposal that the Clallam County YMCA manage SARC in partnership with the SARC board has been completed.
YMCA officials will present results of the study during a meeting beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday in council chambers at the Sequim Civic Center, 152 W. Cedar St.
The presentation is open to the public.
Later this month, YMCA officials plan to present the SARC board with a business plan, Kyle Cronk, YMCA executive director, has said.
The board would then vote to approve or deny the plan.
Firefighter exercise
Draining the pool provided firefighters with valuable training, said Lt. Jeff Albers of Fire District No. 3.
“We are out here helping out SARC and getting some training when we can,” he said.
“It allows us . . . to work out the kinks, literally, so that when we are called to do our job, we can do it efficiently without any mistakes.”
Firefighters conducted a similar operation at SARC earlier this year when the facility was closed temporarily for maintenance, Albers said.
Firefighters connected a 1,250-gallon water tender to a pool drainage pipe and then sucked out about 100,000 gallons of water.
The water was pumped through a 5-inch hose and sprayed on a grassy field northeast of SARC.
Spraying the water out onto the field prevented the water from entering the city’s sewage system, saving the city the cost of processing the water at its sewage facility, Pickering said.
The process took about two hours to complete, with about 1,100 gallons a minute being drained, said Lee Forderer, a firefighter and emergency medical technician.
“It is just a lot of water and a lot of volume,” he said.
“We can run this all day, especially if we have the water to do it.”
At a fire, firefighters could connect the water tender to a lake, stream or even into the ocean, he said.
“We’ve got strainers to prevent fish or debris from entering the hose,” Forderer said.
“We don’t want to hurt the environment.”
Similar filling activities happened as firefighters worked the Graysmarsh Farm barn fire northeast of Sequim on Oct. 20, he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
