By Mark Squibb/December 9, 2022
The City of Mount Pearl is paying $79,750 to replace the system that monitors the pool’s water.
“It was determined that the Summit Pool water chemistry controllers required replacement to permit more effective and efficient monitoring of the pool’s water balance and its control systems,” explained councillor Isabelle Fry during last week’s meeting.
Council awarded the contract for the supply and delivery of pool water chemistry controllers to the lowest qualified bidder, Water & Ice North America.
Councillor Jim Locke asked whether it was the first time for the replacement of the controllers, as he had no memory of them being replaced in the past, and asked what the regular maintenance costs were.
Manager of Facilities Matthew Jones confirmed that it was indeed the first time replacing the system, and the new controllers are more advanced, and can be monitored remotely from a cell phone.
Later in the meeting, council also took a moment to celebrate two full years of continuously heating both Summit Centre Pools solely through recovered energy from the Glacier Eco-Chill System, which council said resulted in annual savings of approximately $65,000. Essentially, the energy normally removed from the Glacier’s ice surfaces during their operation is transferred as heat to the pools next door.
“To put that into perspective, that’s the equivalent of approximately 40 homes,” said Fry. “Council of the day invested in the technology at the time, and we’re now seeing the end results, and the savings, accordingly. So, that’s really exciting news. Two years of not using any heat to heat the pools. That’s awesome.”
Councillor Locke noted the news came with environmental gains as well as the financial gains and befits the City’s ‘green lens’ of looking at things.
“I and the mayor were a part of this decision-making process when this Eco-Chill came before the council table, and it was a tough sell, because there was an additional expenditure of capital upfront,” said Locke. “But the council of the day, and kudos to them, recognised both the environmental impact, the environmental savings, and the financial savings.”
Locke and Fry both tipped their hat to Jones, whom they said played a critical role in the process.
And while the City is saving money by recycling energy to reheat swimming pools, the price of pool chemicals has unfortunately increased.
“On October 11, 2022, the awarded vendor Bilroc Industries, the lowest bidder,
supplying the City of Mount Pearl with 205 litres of chlorine for the treatment of our pool water advised that they were no longer able to continue to supply this product for the tender price bid in January 2020,” said councillor Bill Antle. “The new chlorine price quoted by Bilroc for 205 litre units is $280.85 per unit, an increase from $182.45 per unit, which will have a total annual increase of $9,348.”
Council unanimously accepted the increase.
