TAMPA, Fla. — One of the busiest community pools in the city of Tampa remains closed as students settle into another summer break with blazing temperatures.
Neighbors in Sulphur Springs say the pool’s indefinite closure is just another example of the area being neglected by city leaders.
“It’s just not fair to our kids at all,” said Mary May, who lives in the area.
May says her daughter learned to swim at the Sulphur Springs pool. She says kids in the area won’t have the same access to those swim safety lessons this summer.
At a meeting on Thursday, Parks and Recreation gave a report to Tampa City Council addressing the issues that led to the pool’s untimely closure after working to bring grates in the pool up to compliance.
“Once we drained that pool and removed those grates, we found that water was coming up from the ground into the pool. It was to a force that looked like a garden hose,” said an official from the department.
“We’re hoping in the next 30 days we can have a roadmap of what we might be able to do to bring the pool back online…might not be a forever fix, but it might get us until we can get us to a place for a longer-term replacement.”
Neighbors like May feel the issues should have been addressed before the summer season.
While the pool is closed, Parks and Recreation officials say they plan to launch a shuttle to take people from the Sulphur Springs pool to the Copeland pool. That shuttle would operate Saturday through Thursday.
May says that idea is good "in theory," but she’s worried about kids missing the shuttle to come home, overcrowding at Copeland pool and the potential for conflict with kids in a different environment.
“It’s not fair for these kids here to have to go outside of their neighborhood just be comfortable and have fun,” she said.
City leaders say they’ll have to decide whether a quick repair will be worth the cost or if will be best to build an entirely new pool somewhere else on the property that won’t create the same issues.