City Officials Conduct ‘Walk Through’ With Engineers To Evaluate Aquatic Center


The Glenwood Aquatic Center on opening day in 2016.

Officials from the City of Glenwood conducted a walk-through inspection at the Glenwood Aquatic Center last Wednesday with representatives of JEO Consulting and Eagle Engineering as a first step in determining what repairs are needed and what recourse the city has to resolve ongoing water loss issues at the 6-year-old swimming facility.

The aquatic center didn’t open this year due to ongoing water leakage issues. A crack in a “Tee” on the water supply line was discovered shortly before the facility’s planned opening in late May. The repair to that crack, which required the removal of concrete, took several weeks to complete. Then, just days before the planned delayed opening of the facility in late June, a new issue surfaced. The pool was filled with water on June 25 but by June 27, the water level had dropped several feet. The city council decided at that time to not open the facility this summer so that that the leakage issues could be fully assessed.

JEO Consulting was the engineering firm the city selected in 2014 to oversee construction of the aquatic center, which opened in July 2016. Eagle Engineering was recently contracted by the city to handle its engineering-related matters.

Glenwood Mayor Ron Kohn and current members of the city council have voiced their frustration with the ongoing problems at the aquatic center. Some council members have openly criticized JEO for their work during the construction process while

Mayor Ron Kohn believes past members of the council who were in office during the aquatic center’s construction also shoulder some of the blame.

“Previous council did not do due diligence during construction with (regard to) inspections,” Kohn stated at the Aug. 9 city council meeting. “This is what happens because of what didn’t happen (during the construction process).”

Glenwood City Administrator Amber Farnan said the situation is still being evaluated.

“We did meet with JEO, the engineers, along with our engineers (Eagle Engineering) and we just did a walk-through of the pool on Wednesday (Aug. 10) of the repairs that we made and the repairs that we still need to make,” she said. “They (JEO) are going to prepare a report for us so nothing really transpired from that. It was just a meeting to kind of go over all the issues that we’ve been having.”

Farnan noted earlier this summer that the warranty on the aquatic center has expired and the city will likely be liable for repair costs. City council members have expressed their desire to explore possible legal recourse to recover repair costs, if warranted.

 

The Opinion-Tribune

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