Orono will spend $150,000 on a second round of major repairs to its municipal pool so it can reopen to the public, ideally in time for families to swim this summer.
The town closed the Nickerson pool for renovations last August because it was losing 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of water per day through rotted seams in the gutter. The town replaced the gutter last August through October at an estimated cost of $110,000 but ran into trouble with the pool liner, said Meghan Mazzella, Orono’s parks and recreation director, earlier this month.
The Orono Town Council voted unanimously Monday night to spend $150,000 of the town’s federal pandemic relief funds to repair the liner, which is necessary for the pool to reopen to the public. That includes $91,400 for contracted services, $30,000 for municipal services and $28,600 for contingency.
The town will enter into a contract with RenoSys Corp. of Indiana to remove the current liner and install a new one. Once the liner is in place, municipal staff will complete surface work to the pool’s deck.
Municipal staff anticipated that the liner, which had been removed from the pool walls during the gutter replacement project, could be stretched back to its original shape, but that was not the case, Mazella said previously. The liner sustained damage during construction.
The project’s timeline depends on contract signatures, including those of the town and RenoSys Corp., Mazzella told the council Monday. In previous conversations, the company was “quite confident” that it could complete the work by this summer, she said.
“Thank you for bringing this to us,” Councilor Robert Laraway told Mazella. “I know people in town really value the pool. This is a service that everybody seems to care about.”