Hartke Pool to close for 2024 Due to Safety Concerns

Due to safety concerns with both the pool and deck areas, Hartke Pool will not open for swimming in Summer 2024.

In order to accommodate, the city will open Lorraine Pool seven days a week during the summer months, with Mosby and Rochelle-Landers pools also open during the summer. Officials with the Department of Parks & Recreation have aspects of all three pools in the past two years, and will also create additional programming – including free swimming lessons to beginning swimmers – at Lorraine Pool this summer.

Meanwhile, city officials will begin moving immediately to commission a study regarding the future of Hartke Pool, looking at designs and costs to repair the current pool; to create a new pool at Hartke; or to create another kind of recreational space, such as a splash pad, on the site.

“Hartke Pool has been a gem for our community since it opened in 1978,” said Danielle Crook, executive director of the Department of Parks & Recreation. “We don’t take the decision to close any recreational space lightly – especially not one as beloved, and that holds as many memories for as many people, as Hartke Pool.

“Unfortunately, the structural issues in and around the pool have reached the point where safety concerns require us to take this step and close the facility.”

Among the safety concerns with the pool, which was last renovated in 1989, are:

Uneven surfaces on the pool deck, with many examples of parts of the deck settling or rising due to crushed pipes under the surface leaking water into the ground. These leaks, which also exist beneath the pool itself, eventually create voids under the pavement that have the potential to collapse without warning.

• Holes in the pool walls, through which groundwater seeps into the pool and contaminates the water.
• Cracks in the pool deck, many of which are around drains and stretch into the walls and even floor of the pool itself, creating a danger to the feet of swimmers.
• Slopes around the poolside drains that exceed required maximums which, coupled with the uneven surfaces from the rising and setting deck, create a tripping hazard and an increased likelihood of foot injuries.

The pool also faces numerous mechanical issues, including numerous damaged pipes under the concrete deck, significant corrosion on pool pumps and hardware, and near-full thickness corrosion on the steel filters.

A video walk-through of the space, discussing many of these issues, can be found at facebook.com/evansvillemayor.

Closing the pool also will coincide with construction on Division Street, which will connect the Roberts Park area with Boeke Avenue. That construction will begin next week.

The combination of the Hartke Pool closure and the road construction also means that the Department of Parks & Recreation will not hold Camp Swonder in Summer 2024.