Barbados Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) president Glyne Harrison, has welcomed the return of the Aquatic Centre to operation following its recent closure.
The facility in Wildey was closed by the Ministry of Health on March 12, due to a faulty filtration system.
Its unavailability affected the preparations of the national squad for the CARIFTA Aquatic Championships, and forced the team to switch its training sessions to the Ursuline Convent.
However, following extensive work, the facility reopened on Monday.
Speaking to Barbados TODAY, Harrison revealed that the daily operational schedule at the facility had been modified to ensure its durability.
He said as part of new protocols, the pool would now be closed from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. daily for servicing.
“Our job at the association level is to face issues when they’re highlighted, and we prefer that to be proactively rather than reactively. We also make sure we operate in a way that prevents them from coming back.
“The new daily closure is an enhancement to our previous operating procedures, where prior to the heavy bather’s load – which is really and truly just the amount of persons in the water, which daily is around 3:30 – when we get all the clubs coming to train, what we’ve done is use a window to give the pool a rest,” Harrison said.
“This is so that we can check the various levels to make sure everything’s in compliance and that we can treat it if needed. Also we have enough time that if we need to use chemicals, for example chlorine, there is enough time for it to dissipate before persons come into the water.”
Harrison said the Aquatic Centre had also been spruced up with new signage.
He explained that this was part of efforts to ensure swimmers followed the proper protocols.
“Visually, in terms of when persons come into the facility, they would notice increased signage around the facility, reminding the users of various operational requirements such as taking a wash off before you get into the water.
“Persons may not realise it, but your body has natural oils and also when persons apply creams and gels onto their bodies and then they go into the pool, those are part of the reasons why we have to use filters to keep water clean,” Harrison pointed out.
He revealed the remedial work was done by way of a private entity.
“I would like to give great appreciation to the family of Angus Edghill. The work was done through a trust that was created on behalf of Angus’ legacy, they would have done a majority of the work pro bono.
“We also had some work done by some of our service providers and I want to send thanks to them. We have great partners in the aquatic community and they would have stepped forward and done some work pro bono. This is also in recognition of the fact that the entity is a privately built and operated facility.” Harrison added.
He described running the Aquatic Centre as a “mammoth task”, pointing out that it did not get any funding from government. He said its upkeep was done primarily through membership fees.
The re-opening of the facility has also been welcomed by veteran coach David Farmer, head coach of record breaking CARIFTA Games squad, which recently returned to the island from Martinique.
“Well everybody is very excited about the fact that the pool has reopened and we are expecting strong attendances. We have a competition in about five weeks time; the Sonia O’Neill International Invitational which is set for around the third weekend in May. Everybody has started training with that in mind so the pool is quite busy at this point in time,” he said.
“School starts back next week and attendance is generally tied to school, so maybe these couple of days there may have been a slight drop in attendance, but once school opens we expect everything to go back to normal.”
(KH)
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