Safety concerns force permanent closure of Marathon’s Port Hole Pool | CBC News

Marathon council has voted to permanently close the town’s Port Hole Pool after an inspection this summer showed serious structural issues with the 40-year-old facility.

In an interview with CBC News, Marathon Mayor Rick Dumas said the inspection took place in July; the pool is closed during the summer months for maintenance.

While the pool is regularly inspected by staff during the summer, this year, staff “looked a little more closely and found that the actual beams were a lot more deteriorated than we thought,” Dumas said.

That led to a formal inspection by a structural engineer and architect, which found significant damage to the pool’s structure, he said.

“These are facilities that have got a lot of humidity, moisture, chlorination chemicals that deteriorate buildings a lot quicker,” Dumas said. “It’s one of those things that we continue to try to maintain and keep up on, but these were unknowns, and once we peeled back that foam insulation, realized the impact it had on the deterioration of that metal, we cannot keep the facility open.”

Repairing the damage would cost Marathon about $5 million, a report to council states. Council formally voted to close the pool earlier this month.

“We made a tough decision,” Dumas said. “But the decision was about the safety of our residents more than anything, and we’re going to try to operate different programs over the winter in our Lakeview Hall, as well as different things we can provide throughout the community centres or schools.”

New recreational facility in the works

However, hopefully it won’t be too long before Marathon residents can hit the pool once again. Dumas said work to develop and build a new recreational facility, which will include a pool, is underway.

“We were hoping to keep that pool open until we built a new one,” he said. “But the reality is we will continue to keep the arena and theatre open, but we’ll definitely focus all of our efforts on building a new facility.”

That facility is expected to cost between $56 million and $65 million, Dumas said, and current plans call for it to include a theatre, pool, larger arena and some meeting rooms.

Marathon is hoping to receiving funding support from upper levels of government and other sources. A final design is expected in early 2024, and the project would go to tender after that.

In the meantime, Dumas said Marathon is considering other options for swimmers, at least in the summer months.

“People utilize the outdoor lakes all around,” he said. “The big lake’s not so comforting. The temperature doesn’t really go up in Lake Superior much over the summer.”

“But we have [the] great Penn Lake Park in our community that we own, and we have had preliminary discussions around that,” Dumas said. “What does that look like, for us providing some lifeguarding services maybe over the summer months?”

“We’ll continue to have talks around that over the winter, and see if we can provide some sort of programming for our youth, and all residents alike, by having some sort of lifeguarding services at the park. That’s not a guarantee, but that’s the discussion we’re going to have over the winter.”