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Marietta YMCA pool permanently closes

The Marietta Family YMCA announced Wednesday that its pool is closed indefinitely.

“The last couple of weeks there has been one maintenance issue after another and the board has decided it is in the best financial interest of the business to close the pool,” explained Chief Volunteer Officer and Chairman of the Board Rick Smith. “The building is old, and the pool is old. And yes, the building is for sale and our intent has been for a while to transition to a new location.”

Smith said new locations being considered would accommodate most of the Y’s offerings like childcare and aerobics classes, but would not include a pool.

Some programs affected by the unexpected closure have been relocated to other pools.

“Therapeutic swim, which was contracted with the hospital, has moved to a different location, our swim teams have temporary spots at other local pools to finish out their seasons and those who had already signed up for child swim lessons will now have those at the Betsey Mills Club,” Smith explained.

Marietta Marlins Head Coach Ryan Zundell said both the child swim team and the Marietta High School swim team have secured pool practice times in the region for the remainder of the season, in Parkersburg and Athens.

“Indoor pools are scarce in our area and getting in pool time around others’ programming is a challenge but the high school is in at the Boys and Girls Club in Parkersburg to finish their season,” he said, noting his son is a freshman on the team. “And the Marlins, we have a good relationship with the (Ohio University) youth coach and have practiced together before.”

Zundell said his charges will be practicing three times per week–Monday, Wednesday and Friday–from 5:30 to 7 p.m. until the season ends in March.

“Long-term we hope that we still do have a team (next season),” he said. “But there is some time to prepare and work that out since our official start of the winter season doesn’t begin until Sept. 1.”

Zundell said he understands that the decision to no longer use the pool at the YMCA is putting safety at the forefront.

“At first there was a pipe issue and the water had to be lowered to fix it,” he explained.

Now, he continued, there’s a crack in the wall of the pool.

“From a safety standpoint it’s not safe to continue in that pool and risk a kid getting sucked in or the wall breaking and flooding the basement,” said Zundell.

Other impacted programming includes water aerobics and open swim times for members of the community gym.

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