Boiler replacement brings up question of new pool in Bonnyville again

It’s expected to be about 5-6 weeks until the Bonnyville Swimming Pool can re-open, following necessary upgrades to the boilers.

The Town needed to spend just over $60,000 to replace the boilers, which had reached the end of their lifespan.

With the Town pooled, the questions again begin to swirl about the viability of the current pool, and whether a new one could be coming.

“The bones of that facility are so old,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau on The Morning After. 

“The decision is, do you just close it indefinitely, or do you put some money into it and fix up the boilers so we at least have a pool? And that’s what we’re going to do.

“It’s going to be closed for a while, until we can get those new boilers and install them. It’s at a price tag of, I think it was $63,000 but we’re going back to the drawing board. We continue to have a focus area of a new pool, but we want some funding from the federal government and that won’t happen for a couple of years, so I’d rather at least have a pool than not.” 

While this current edition of town council verbally committed to the pool, the realities of the costs loom.

Lac La Biche County’s new pool approximiately $46M, with about $15M funded from the federal and provincial governments.

New infrastructure costs are skyrocketing since COVID, and with increasing asks from community organizations, combined with provincial costs being downloaded onto municipalities, the fiscal situation for communities is tough.

In fact, Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland said it would still be “years”

“I don’t see a silver lining going forward. I’m very worried about municipalities going forward here in the future, the cost for projects, for construction.

“There’s so much that needs to be done and and I think that the province needs to come in with a municipal investment plan where they’re going to help municipalities that don’t have the financial means to survive.

“It’s getting close to survival. I think whoever’s going to be running in the next elections, it’s going to be about survival. It isn’t going to be about, well, I want to build this and that, because the cost, like we said, with the arena, like a swimming pool, I’m sure is going to be for Cold Lake, it’s going to be probably in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 million.”