ZERO-ENTRY TYPE EYED
The Tonkawa City Council will work on developing a plan for the City’s Municipal Swimming Pool at the August City Council Meeting. The Pool, originally built in 1936, was closed during the 2016 swimming season due to large leaks and the inability to keep the pool clear of algae. Each of several repairs made to the bottom of the pool over the years since its major overhaul failed.
The consensus of municipal pool experts contacted by the City and the Ad-hoc Committee is that, due to the age and construction style, restoring the pool in its current configuration could easily be more expensive than building a completely new pool. The existing pool is 75 ft wide by 150 ft long, covering 11,250 square feet of area. Modern municipal pool construction utilizes much more compact pool design elements that include adult, child and non-swimmer, and diving areas. Pools designed for a Tonkawa sized municipality are suggested to be in the range of 3,000 to 4,500 square feet, less than one third the size of the existing pool. A pool this size can easily accommodate well over 100 people. The smaller pool is much easier to maintain, requires far less water and chemicals, and can be effectively managed by a smaller number of staff.
Most of the designs proposed envision an “L” shaped pool with a “Zero-Entry” section on the bottom of the “L” and traditional lap swimming and diving section on the vertical side of the “L”. The lap and diving section is a rectangular area 30 feet wide by 75 feet long, and the Zero-Entry and play area is a fan shaped section about 60 feet long with the narrow part of the fan connected to the deeper swimming and diving section.
The Zero-Entry section allows the pool to accommodate young children and non-swimmers. Zero-Entry pools have a gently sloping bottom that is continuous with the pool deck. The pool depth would only be about 1 foot 15 feet from the entrance, and then continuing to a depth of 4 feet where it connects to the traditional swimming section. Currently there are no municipal pools in Kay County that have the Zero-Entry option. The minimum depth of the existing pool is 3 feet.
The City Council will also discuss the costs required to both build and maintain a municipal pool. Building a new pool will require a significant expenditure of funds. The ...
