DGN’s pool is used by PE students, student athletes, and swim clubs from as early as 6:15 a.m. until 9:15 p.m. every day. This is a story that goes back to Nov. 2, 1972, when the taxpayers of Downers Grove approved both District 99 pools at the ballot box. However, what most don’t pay attention to is all of the work that goes into maintaining this 53-year-old establishment on the rare occasions when the facility goes awry.
“Now that I’m in swim season, it’s pretty important that the pool is running because otherwise, we’d most likely go to DGS; we’d have to go to a different pool to practice,” senior Zachary Sue said. “Sophomore year, we had a blackout during one of our practices over winter break. Because we were mid-set, I was still swimming in the dark, trying to fumble my way to the wall. We ended up canceling practice, because obviously we couldn’t see.”
Behind the scenes, several who work in the pool every day to keep the pool up and running for the PE students, student athletes, and club members who use the waters regularly. One of these people, often the first in the facility on any given day, is pool manager Kali Suits, who is responsible for opening the pool, overseeing classes in the room, and equipment storage.
“Some people were moving our stuff and we were losing our equipment, some of our stuff would go missing, or just over time, things got messy or broke and we didn’t want that to keep happening,” Suits said. “When I started here, we had the blue bins for the swim team that held our kickboards and held our pullbuoys. But they were also kind of liability because they were breaking and they were kind of in the way. So since I was on both the swim team and PE staff, we made a decision to get rid of them.”
Off the deck, however, is where all of the chemicals and machines that keep the pool running and clean. Maintenance engineers Daniel Novotny and Christopher Blaze work in these two rooms every day. In the past year alone, they have been responsible for re-piping the locker room showers, replacing and re-piping the air compressor after oil leakage, returning the temperature of the pool to 80 degrees after it dropped to 76 degrees in November, which briefly closed it to DGN’s student body.
“There could be a number of different reasons why the pool is shut down. I would say every once a week there’s a minor issue in here because it’s old, but it could be shut down because it’s not warm enough, and that’s a boiler issue that is on the other side of the school. The other day, we thought we were going to have to shut it down because of the check valve; the pool overfilled,” Novotny said. “So we dropped a pump on the other side of the pool and pumped water out the door and into the storm drain.”
Pool maintenance also involves third-party support. Novotny and Blaze have worked with third-party technicians in order to obtain parts and analyze the pool’s piping.
“We asked our pool guy for little fittings a month ago and we don’t have them. There’s only so much we can do as far as a lot of things are out of our control as well, like ordering parts: we order parts, it’s the wrong size, we re-order it, and they send us the same thing,” Blaze said. “This guy says this fitting was supposed to be here. We haven’t even heard from him in a month. That was another issue recently.”
The most recent visitation to the pool made by third-party contractors occurred Nov. 25 in order to locate and repair the source of leakage happening beneath the tile floor of the facility. CMG worked with the contractors to analyze piping not detailed in the pool’s original blueprints.
“The pool’s old and it needs a lot of love, and that’s why we’re in here every day,” Novotny said. “When the coordinator goes out, it’s a nine month wait to get a new one, and it’s not going to be cheap. I don’t know the prices, but five figures for sure.”
