Posted on: Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Rains delay repairs at Palolo Valley pool

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

It's been a wetter than usual summer and those pesky passing showers continue to plague efforts to reopen the Palolo Valley District Park swimming pool.

City officials and the contracting firm working on a $300,000 repair project were hoping that the pool could reopen by the end of last week.

But periodic and persistent rains have washed away those hopes.

"It can be clear over 95 percent of the island and still be raining in Palolo Valley," said Colin Leong, project manager for contractor KD Construction.

The popular city pool shut down a year ago for a project that was supposed to be done in February, but problems with tiles on the floor of the pool pushed back the anticipated completion date to early this month.

The city asked that the entire bottom of the pool be retiled after the 2-by-2-inch ceramic tiles kept coming loose.

But the city later agreed to a scaled-down version of the tile replacement work after the contractor promised a five-year-warranty.

When the project began at the end of last summer, it was hoped that the pool would be open in plenty of time to help Palolo residents keep cool during the torrid late summer and early fall months.

Carol Costa, city information director, said the Summer Fun program at the park is "over and done with" without any of the school-age children enrolled in the program having set foot in the pool.

Leong said the work could be done in a matter of days, providing it stays sunny long enough during the workweek for the KD crew to cement the final tiles, to let the adhesive set and to seal the job.