Race against time

The once well-maintained Kan Pacific Swimming Pool may suffer significant damage as power at the facility is scheduled for a shutdown on Oct. 9. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Once the power at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool is turned off next week, members of the sports community are worried of the damage that the closure will bring to the facility and the people using it.

“We were told by Kan Pacific management that they will be turning the power off on Oct. 9 and we don’t know what will happen next,” Northern Mariana Islands Swimming Federation president John Hirsh said last night during the Northern Marianas Sports Association meeting at the conference room of the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

The 50-meter pool closed to the public last Sept. 30, but pumps are still running. However, NMISF does not know if water treatment is still being done considering it’s been almost a week since Kan Pacific shut the facility down. If the pumps stop running and chemicals are not used to treat the water, it will cost significant damage to the pool and the swimmers.

Northern Marianas Athletics official Robin Sapong, who works in one of the hotels with pools here, explained it would take just less than a month for harmful organism and bacteria to form and contaminate the water in the pool.

Hirsh, on the other hand, feared that if the water is contaminated due to the prolonged closure, the pool needs to be drained, which hasn’t been done in the last 20-plus years. Sapong was then quick to point out that draining the entire pool will cause the floor to crack so with their experience they do the draining by batches.

Weightlifting federation head John Davis added that no swimmers or their parents will take the risk of getting back into the pool if it hasn’t been taken cared off in a while for fear of contracting diseases.

Confronted with these problems, NMSA president Michael White said the closure is a race against time.

Volleyball head Laurie Peterka asked if NMSA or NMISF could come forward to take care of the pool, but White said the group could only help in providing manpower to watch the facility, not the cost to operate it. Power cost for the maintenance and management of the Olympic-sized pool is around $4,000 a month.

Kan Pacific shut down the pool and other facilities in Marpi under its care after its lease extension agreement with the Department of Public Lands expired last Sept. 30. Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LCC was given the green light last week to take over the management of the Marpi property, but there’s no definite date yet when will it start running the facilities. DPL and IPI are scheduled to meet today to discuss issues surrounding the facilities.

Meanwhile, Hirsh added that NMISF officials and swimmers turned in the petition to keep the pool open to the office of Lt. Gov. Victor Hocog through his chief of staff Oliver Gonzales yesterday afternoon. The petition was signed by over 14,000.