There’s no timeline for reopening the $24 million Bethel pool, which closed right after the grand opening this past Saturday due to a sprinkler system issue.
Acting City Manager Pete Williams says the city wants to have experts look at the system, in light of the recent devastating fire at the new Alcohol Treatment center.
“As we speak they are trying to determine what the problem is, until they can determine what it is and what’s needed for the fix, it’s hard to give a timeline of when it will be open again,” said Williams.
Doug Cobb works for ProDev, the project management firm, and is in Bethel trying to figure out the issue.
“We have pressure at the hydrant and there’s something inconsistent in the building, we have gotten the system to work successfully several times, but to pass that test that has to be done over and over, and over. That’s what we’re troubleshooting,” said Cobb.
Williams says the crews thought they had found the problem Thursday morning, but another issue popped up.
The state Fire Marshall granted the city an exception last Saturday to host the grand opening, even though inspectors the day before found the pressure to run the sprinkler system to be inadequate.
Cobb says a fire sprinkler specialist from the Lower 48 has been consulted in the troubleshooting.
Ben Matheson is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
