The plans for the Wallace pool

WALLACE — It would appear as though the city of Wallace has finally figured out some answers in regard to its historic swimming pool.

At the beginning of the summer, it was announced that the pool would be closed for the second straight summer season after administrators couldn’t identify why the pool was losing copious amounts of water overnight.

After hearing from consultants from Terracon, an engineering firm that offers services such as aquatic rehabilitation, as well as distressed facility evaluations, the Wallace City Council decided to move forward to begin the redesign of the pool.

“We learned that we will need to replace the floor, but can keep the walls of the pool shell. We are also going to have to re-do the piping and circulation system,” said Heather Branstetter, city councilwoman. “I am attaching some of the summary from the Terracon report. After they complete their design for the repair and replacement work, we will put the project out to bid.”

From a cost standpoint, Terracon believes that the cost to redesign and repair should be in the ballpark of $450,000, in addition to their $29,000 consulting fee.

The Friends of the Wallace Pool have been hard at work making sure it is fundraising and doing everything in its power to gather monies to put toward this project.

“We have raised about $53,000 in grants so far, and we also have about $120,000 available from the past two summers of the pool not being open,” Branstetter said.

The grant monies in particular have come from several different sources, but the biggest grantors have been:

- Innovia Foundation — $30,000

- Idaho Heritage Trust — $7,500

- Idaho Community Foundation — $5,000

- Callahan Zeller Foundation — $5,000

- Morbeck Community Foundation — $5,000

- Kingsbury Foundation — $500

Outside grants and unspent yearly expenses, the Friends of the Pool also raised $800 during the recent 80th birthday celebration for the pool.

Ali Koski of Oliver’s Mercantile also donated about $300 raised from selling Radio Brewing beer during her grand opening party.

At this point, a specific time frame has not been established to begin the work, but the city of Wallace will be putting the jobs out for bid as soon as possible.