Leak closing Bill Trees early this year
Jon Sternberg photo
Amin Miller, left, and Jedediah Huee, play on the floating pyramid at Bill Trees Memorial Pool.
Jon Sternberg photo
Jedediah Huee takes a dive at Bill Trees Memorial Pool.
Leak closing Bill Trees early this year
Today is final day of the swimming season
By Jon Sternberg
jsternberg55@gmail.com
Harrisburg
The Bill Trees Pool at the Paul Emery Park in Harrisburg saw its last day of the 2014 season on Friday, an early end to the public swimming season.
"We have serious leakage issues with the drain in the deep end," Emery said. "We will have to replace a lot of old copper lines to reach the main outflow hook-up east of the pool. It's more economical to replace it than to repair it. We have been losing an inch a day in the pool because of the problems."
Melonie Motsinger, park pool manager state that it had been a slow summer for the pool because of the unusually cool weather.
"We usually almost always have over 150 visitors a day. This year we have had to close early four or five times because of lack of customers," she said.
Motsinger said that despite the cool weather, the park's rental pool parties and special events such as "Friday Movie Nights" "Family Night" and "Christmas in July" have been very well attended.
"We have had more pool parties this year then last year," Motsinger said. "Though a couple of times we have had to juggle them around to fit the weather."
In the afternoon of July 31 there were a dozen or so kids and parents enjoying the sun and fun at the pool. Jedediah Huee and his friend Amin Miller, ages 8 and 9 respectively, were cavorting off the diving board and scrambling around on the floating pyramid in the pool. Both said they were frequent pool patrons and enjoyed the fun that the pool provided very much. Miller said that he felt bad that he had missed almost a week of fun at the pool this year.
When asked how they felt about the summer being over and school starting soon, they had very different feelings.
"I want to go back way bad!" said Huee.
"I don't wanna go back. The only things I really like are hanging out with my friends, the playground and lunch!" said Miller.
Sawyere Reeder, a first year lifeguard said that she felt that pool attendance had been pretty good this year.
"It's been pretty full each day," Reeder stated.
When asked about her job as a lifeguard, Reeder was very positive.
"I love this job," Reeder said.