Bucksport’s town pool is closed indefinitely due to a mysterious leak that would cost the town an estimated $27,000 in water alone this season.
The 60-plus-year-old outdoor pool was losing 6 inches of water a day, despite investigations and repairs, leading the town to close it indefinitely because of safety, sanitation and financial risks.
“Now we’ve got to find what the culprit is,” Rich Rotella, the town’s economic and community development director, said earlier this month. “Because everything that we know through science, and all the brains put together, we can’t find it. It’s not available to us.”
It’s the second summer in less than a decade that the pool has been closed; it shut down in 2019 after leaking 600,000 gallons of water in a week. Voters that fall decided by a wide margin to fund a rebuild of up to $1 million, but councilors chose to repair it.
One of the only outdoor swimming pools in the region, the facility attracts thousands of visitors during its 10-week season and is a longtime summer fixture for families in Bucksport and surrounding towns.
The unknown leak, and the possibility that it indicates expensive repairs ahead, comes as Bucksport has recently entered a period of financial belt-tightening that could limit long-term options.
It’s been a tough few years for area pools: nearby Belfast’s city pool was closed for most of last year and just reopened. Bar Harbor’s aging wading pool closed in 2022 and is in the process of being revived in one form or another, a project that will cost more than $1.5 million, according to the Bar Harbor Story.
The Bucksport pool was a gift to the town from the St. Regis Paper Company when it owned the town’s paper mill, according to Bangor Daily News archives. The mill, later owned by Verso, closed permanently in 2014.
By 2019, the pool structure was weakening; police were called at one point to look at suspected bullet holes in its lining that turned out to be sinking rebar.
Almost all of the $1 million project proposed in 2019 was expected to come from the town’s general fund, which councilors are now trying to rebuild by cutting costs. The fund was nearly drained as the town spent down savings that had cushioned it from losing the mill.
When the pool was first filled this season, it lost about seven inches of water in 14 hours despite earlier sealing, according to Rotella.
Staff found it had been filled with perimeter drains closed, and asphalt swelled half an inch to an inch near the drains, indicating water trapped underneath.
The local water company scoped pipes near the drains and didn’t find any cracks. Another patch was made and hundred gallons of paint used to cover every crack, Rotella said; the town “called in everybody” to investigate.
The 213,000 gallon pool was filled a second time after a partial test, but continued to lose six inches per day.
That rate would cost about $27,000 in water alone and complicate the chemical balance, which already has to be checked every few hours. Running water would also limit use of the bathrooms and showers, he said.
Facing those safety, financial and sanitary issues, Rotella said there was no choice but to drain it again and close it.
A 360-degree scoping camera could further investigate pipes in the pool, and it’s possible the problem could be just a minor fix, he said.
The current problem shows the end of life of the town’s last big pool repair, which Rotella called a band-aid approach to 2019’s leak.
Members of the town’s recreation committee this month asked about long term options for the pool, which they see as an important asset for Bucksport. Its future is unclear, according to Rotella, who said there is currently “no money” to fix it.
Committee member Emily Fitzgerald noted that residents supported a new pool, though money isn’t available now and years have passed.
“The point is, the people spoke, and no matter how far down the road it goes, at some point we’ve got to do something,” she said.
Matt McInnis, director of the town’s YMCA, which uses the pool, told the committee he worries a big fix may be required to keep it functional for years to come. McInnis suggested finding creative funding sources to keep it open.
The pool consistently loses money, but almost all aquatic facilities do, McInnis said; the question now, in his view, is how much of a loss the town is willing to take.
The pool is a “huge, huge asset” for the community, he said.
“As of right now, the pool’s not going to open this year,” Rotella said July 1.
