chapmaja

Fri, Jul 22, 2011 : 8:08 p.m.

Someone might be losing a job of this mistake. I have worked in pool maintainance in the past and have made mistakes, such as leaving the filling valve on (overfilled the pool), but I have never made this type mistake as to leave the backwash valve open and allow a substantial valume of the water to drain out. This mistake costs the City of Ann Arbor (who runs the pool and operates it on the taxpayers dime) thousands of dollars in revenue on a day like yesterday. When you add in the costs of pool chemicals that were flushed down the backwash valve you are looking at an expensive mistake. As for the comments about the Fire Department not helping to fill the pool. Fuller Pool is owned and operated by the City of Ann Arbor. The Fire Department is a department of the City of Ann Arbor. Having the fire department come in and attempt to help the pool so it could potentially be available for use later Thursday or Today (which is what happened) is a win for the city, not a loss. What would the firefighters have been doing had they not been helping to fill the pool? they would have been sitting in the fire station, still collecting a paycheck doing nothing waiting for an emergency call. At least in this case they were doing something constructive with their time in an attempt to help the City of Ann Arbor. This was a very costly mistake for the City of Ann Arbor yesterday, but at least they had people attempting to help correct the problem. I don't know if they still do this, but in the past when Fuller Pool would initially get filled in the spring they would have a fire truck come and help out filling the pool then as well. When you consider the volume of water in Fuller Pool, which is an Olympic sized pool, there is a lot of water to be added to that pool. The facilities the pool has for adding water to the pool are designed to make sure the pool maintained it's level or fill the pool slowly. They are not designed to do a rapid fill like yesterday required.