Harry's Gang: Treasured pond could use tweaks

Now that summer has arrived, The Beach at Pinehurst Park is open and ready for swimmers.

Or is it?

The City of Cloquet spent millions to renovate Pinehurst Park to make a clean, safe swimming facility. It was a long, community-involved process. Consultants gave us three options for remodeling the old Pinehurst Pond and neighbors debated the merits of each option for months.

It didn’t help much that the consultants labeled the options as “Good,” “Better” and “Best.” Those designations caused a lot of contention between those who wanted a traditional concrete pool, and those who wanted to keep the traditional swimming pond. Many City council meetings were devoted to debate on the issue, and eventually the council agreed with the “best” option: a sand-bottom pond, with sandy beaches and filtered water to cool off in over the summer months.

The pond was troubled right from the start. Right away, a leak developed in the rubber lining and the water level dropped noticeably every day; the city pumped millions of gallons of water into the pond before the tear was finally repaired.

Then, the “washed sand” turned out to be tiny gravel, and despite promises that the pond would be as clear as a sand-bottom lake, the water gets pretty murky by late afternoon, when sediment is churned up from all the activity in the pool. That’s still an issue.

But most of the glitches worked out fine, and The Beach is now lightly chlorinated, so you don’t have that bleach smell you get from a swimming pool. The water is sanitary and clear, until those late afternoons.

There are lanes for serious swimmers to do laps, and zero-entry beaches for little kids. The staff, mostly young adults, are attentive and pleasant. The showers are clean and hot, and there are concessions, tables with umbrellas, and lounge chairs.

It’s pretty full, too, on sunny days. The Beach at Pinehurst has become a popular regional attraction, and we should be proud of our pool.

I’ve been around the country and seen many community pools. The “splash pads” that were to become a part of our pool never materialized, and those seem to be pretty popular with younger kids. Things like water slides, wave machines, and water sports appear to be popular, too. I like our approach, though — we’ve figured out how to blend a natural lake with the cleanliness of a chlorinated pool, with some of the best features of both.

It would be nice if the pool were open early mornings for adult swims. I also wish it could be open later in the evening; it closes at 7 p.m. now, and the last few weeks of summer, it closes at 5 p.m. And, the pool is drained by September, so no matter how warm it gets in the fall, the pool is closed. These ideas may be logistically difficult, but it would be nice.

I do hope that Community Education, which operates the pool on behalf of the city, addresses one major concern: we never know when the pool is open or not. It seems that on cooler days the pool closes early or opens late, but the real annoyance is when it rains early in the day and the pool closes for the whole day, even if the skies clear up and it gets warm outside. It’s disappointing to get all ready for the pool, only to arrive and find it closed.

Pete Radosevich is the publisher of the Pine Knot News community newspaper and an attorney in Esko who hosts the talk show Harry’s Gang on CAT-7. He can be reached at [email protected].