The Palisades-Malibu YMCA has elected to make repairs on the broken recirculation pump at its 50-year-old pool in Temescal Canyon. The date of the pool reopening will be contingent on a geologist’s hillside stability report, which is expected to take about five weeks. If all goes well, the pool could be reopened around Memorial Day, according to the Y’s executive director, Carol Pfannkuche. Last Friday, Pfannkuche told the Palisadian-Post that the Y had reached an agreement with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which owns the pool and adjacent property. She wrote in a letter to members that the Conservancy’s executive director, Joe Edmiston, had consented to the repairs, and had also ‘confirmed that the YMCA has no liability for either the current condition of the pool or the suitability of the surrounding geology. With these understandings confirmed in writing, the YMCA is proceeding with these actions immediately.’ The geological study will start today and geologists will spend about two days on the hillside above and below the pool. The YMCA is paying for that study as well as the estimated $25,000 needed for the pool repair. ‘We’re doing this with good faith and hope that all will be well with the geological [report],’ Pfannkuche said. ‘The YMCA remains committed to safety as our first concern. We must wait for the results of the study before we allow swimming to resume.’ Many swimmers were heartened to hear that the pool–closed since February 9– was finally going to be repaired. Loss of the town’s only competitive pool (six 25-yard lanes) has caused the Palisades High School school swim teams to be without a practice or meet site, and has displaced the Y-swim team, master and lap swimmers, water exercise classes and swim lessons. The swim teams have been training at inconvenient hours at Santa Monica High and Santa Monica College. Other swimmers are driving to the Santa Monica YMCA and the Westwood Recreation Center. When the recirculation pump broke, the YMCA became concerned about land movement on the hillside above the pool. A portion of this land slid over the roadway into the pool on February 23, 1998, closing the pool for two months. After this year’s pool closure, an inspection of the pool and grounds found that an area of the hillside directly above the pool was saturated. A six-inch pipe, which started in the backyard of a house located on Rimmer Avenue, was draining water to that site. Pfannkuche contacted Joyce Whitehead, the Conservancy’s manager in Temescal Canyon, who contacted the neighbor. ‘The owners are working with the Conservancy,’ Whitehead said last week before leaving on vacation. ‘There is not a problem. They have done an enormous amount of due diligence on their own property and what little issue there is will be resolved as soon as possible.’ On Monday this week, workers were trenching across the hillside above the pool in order to lay the pipe underground. It was not clear where that pipe was going to drain. A neighbor on Rimmer asked the Post, ‘Why do they get to drain down the hill? My water has to drain into the street.’ Whitehead was unavailable for comment.
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