Cañon City’s R.C. Icabone Swimming Pool has closed for the season, but its kid-favorite water slide is closed forever.
The slide was shut down toward the end of June because its steel-frame structure has been compromised from corrosion after years of pool water spilling over the top.
The slide was installed in the mid-1990s.
“The slide itself is in good shape,” said Kyle Horne, the executive director of the Cañon City Area Recreation and Park District. “The issue is that the chlorinated water hits the steel-frame structure holding it.”
Jim Johnson, the vice president of the board of directors for the CCARPD, said two of the steps are completely detached from the side of the structure, which poses a significant danger and liability issue when 25 to 30 children can be lined up at a time on the steel stairwell.
“We’ve repaired it and bolted it through in some places, but in other areas, the steel has rusted so much that you can’t even bolt it through and have it hold,” Johnson said. “Where it is completely corroded on the stairs, we can’t even reattach those to the steel structure.”
The cost to replace the frame alone is about $200,000, Horne said, but that won’t solve the deterioration issue that will continue to occur.
“What you are going to need to do is get something that is completely enclosed and can offer a slide that is completely enclosed (like a fully-enclosed pipe) where water isn’t spilling out,” Horne said.
Johnson said even if the board replaced the structure, it likely would outlast the pool itself.
The pool opened in 1966, having outlived its lifespan by 25 years, Horne said.
“This pool doesn’t have more than five years left in it, probably less than that,” Johnson said.
The board has sent out requests for proposals to professional firms to research and assess the quality of the pipes beneath the pool, as well as the condition of the pool liner to determine how much life is left in the current pool structure.
“We need to know all of that information now so we can try to make a better decision on what to do with the pool,” Horne said. “Remodeling an outdoor pool is not a simple task. There is one community in Colorado that is looking at remodeling theirs, and it’s a $6 million project to remodel their existing outdoor pool, which is not very much different size wise than what we currently have.”
Johnson said the liner also is detaching from the pool in some areas, which requires patching every year.
“The more it gets behind there and corrodes that liner, then the more places we get that are delaminating,” he said. “Then you have the structure behind the laminated part that has been corroded and is old, and that’s where we would probably have to replace the entire pool.”
The board will review the results on the pipes and liner once they are available and then decide what its goals will be moving forward.
The recreation district has partnered with the City of Cañon City, Fremont County, the Golden Age Center, St. Thomas More Hospital and a citizen’s group to have a feasibility done to determine if a community recreation center would be a worthwhile project.
The study currently is in progress and has not yet been completed, Horne said.
“The question that this community is now going to need to start to ask is what do we do with our swimming pool and the services that we provide,” Horne said. “There is not money within the recreation district budget to do a $6 million rebuild, it just isn’t there.”
The recreation district currently subsidizes the cost to operate the pool for less than four months a year to the tune of $30,000 to $40,000 annually.
Johnson said a year-around community recreation center would offer amenities to all age populations, and through fees and memberships, it likely would become self-sufficient in a matter of years.
“It is a good investment for the community, we just have to wait to get the feasibility done to see what we can afford, what the tax base can afford, and what the citizens will actually get behind,” Johnson said. “Even if that passes, we are four to five years out before it gets built, so we’ve got to try to do something to maintain a pool for the community between now and then.”
Pending changes in residential assessment rates in 2020 could reduce the recreation district’s budget by 15 percent, which poses another consideration when looking toward the future of the aging pool.
Carie Canterbury: 719-276-7643, canterburyc@canoncitydailyrecord.com
