EDITORIAL
Natatorium, city's budget both hurting

We're most reluctant to stick our toe back in this pool again. The depth of feeling over what to do with the Natatorium, we'd swear, sometimes seems to exceed that over the war in Iraq.

But news that the seawalls of the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium are starting to pull away from the rest of the structure moves us to suggest that it may be time for the city to honestly consider cutting its losses.

This damage is serious, city Managing Director Ben Lee informs us. The fact that part of the pool deck has collapsed in front of the bleachers suggests the stability of the entire structure may be, or may soon be, compromised.

Alarmed city officials have closed the Natatorium's refurbished public bathrooms as a result. Symbolism of the World War I memorial aside, these bathrooms are the only materially useful result of a $4 million restoration project completed four years ago.

Mayor Jeremy Harris and a host of supporters badly want to restore the original function of the Natatorium, as a saltwater swimming pool. In its heyday, Duke Kahanamoku, Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weismuller churned up its competitive swimming lanes, and kids spent entire summer days leaping off the diving tower.

But the odds against ever making the pool safe or healthy seem overwhelming. And without the pool, it's a monument with bathrooms that could stand somewhere besides the middle of one of Hawai'i's most popular beaches.

UH geology professor Chip Fletcher, as part of his testimony before the City Council in 1998, submitted an estimate of about $900,000 for restoration of the site as a beach.

The city expects a report back in a couple of weeks on just how bad the Natatorium's deterioration has become, but we'd bet that fixing the structure, even in the short run, won't be much cheaper than taking it down.

Fletcher said the estimate he provided would create a semi-protected swimming beach, open to the sea, including sand fill, altering the Natatorium walls into low-profile rock groins, and removing the interior deck and seaward wall.

The restored facade and upland park enhancements would remain. We're sure this won't satisfy those nostalgic for the pool and hungry for a fully restored World War I memorial.

But we're afraid the cash-strapped city simply can't afford it.