Cape Town - The Newlands Swimming Pool is set to reopen today after five years of being closed for repairs and upgrades.
Ward 59 councillor Mikhail Manuel said in his “Daily Newlands Pool Updates” mailing list that the popular pool should be open today.
After being closed for five years for repairs and upgrades, it briefly reopened and then closed again in 2017.
The facility was forced to close its doors once more when a chlorine gas leak was discovered in October last year in the swimming pool plant room. No one was affected, but the facility was declared unsafe.
Manuel’s update, sent on Thursday, January 19, said that an alternative method was being used to combat the faulty pipe network used to distribute chlorine.
“The officials have been conducting manual dosing of chlorine and conducting several tests to ensure the water quality meets safety standards.”
He said that the team had swept the entire pool of algae that had been growing at a faster rate on account of the low chlorine levels during various repairs. The pool would also undergo a backwash before it is opened to the public.
“Upon completion, the officials will undertake further tests at the inlets and outlets to continue to check that chlorine distribution is adequate. Once the pool has reopened, manual chlorine dosing will continue throughout each day to ensure water quality levels.”
Should everything go according to plan and the Newlands Swimming Pool reopens on Friday, it will only be operating from Thursdays to Sundays in accordance with the City of Cape Town scaling back the operating days and hours of public swimming pools for the post-holiday season.
Manuel also reiterated that load shedding has a direct effect on the pool.
“The pool pump is not backed up by a generator. Therefore, any load shedding, and especially severe load shedding, affects water quality and the safety of using the pool.”