CORNER BROOK — The swimming pool at Margaret Bowater Park reopened on Monday afternoon after being closed for the weekend.
Rayna Luther, the City of Corner Brook's assistant director of operational services, said the dam on the pool was dropped on the pool at about 10 a.m. to allow it to fill back up in preparation for the park's afternoon opening.
Luther said the pool was closed on Friday after Deer Lake Power experienced some issues with a piece of machinery and had to conduct an emergency spillover of Three Mile Dam.
"So when the water started coming down into the pool area of Margaret Bowater Park there was a lot of debris coming with it and a lot of sediment was starting to settle on the bottom of the pool," said Luther.
Because of that, the city decided to close the pool. Luther said around suppertime city workers cleared some of the debris, which included logs and tree branches, from the pool.
She said because of the silt and sediment in the pool it was decided to let the water settle before reopening.
On Saturday morning city workers removed more debris that had gotten caught in the pool's dam and with the water looking clear, Luther said the city attempted to open the pool.
"Within the first half hour of kids in there swimming ... the lifeguards felt that it wasn't safe because the water was getting really cloudy," Luther said.
She said the sediment that had settled to the rocks on the bottom was being stirred up by the swimmers.
With swimmer safety in question the city decided to close the pool again.
"The lifeguards need to be able to see the bottom of the pool because they can't keep an accurate head count at all times," said Luther.
She said if they can't see the rocks at the bottom then, obviously, they wouldn't see a child there.
"So as soon as the water got murky to that level that they couldn't see the bottom they made the call to close it," she said.
Luther said the city then determined the only way to removed the sediment was to open the dam and flush out the water to clear off the rocks on the bottom.
The dam was lifted shortly after lunch on Saturday and remained up until it was closed on Monday.
Luther said staff will monitor it to make sure everything is fine, and with rain on Monday afternoon there was little activity at the park.
She said Deer Lake Power hadn't confirmed if the issue it was experiencing was fixed, but did indicate it would give the city advance notice if it had to conduct another overflow.
@GEORGE P B The water wouldn't be "contaminated" by sediments found in nature. They're not releasing any toxins or pollution into the environment, they're releasing water over a dam and the water is taking rocks and trees with it and carrying it down to the park. It says Deer Lake had a problem with a piece of machinery and that's why they had to do an emergency spill. Children wouldn't be playing in "Contaminated water", they'd be playing around logs and rocks.