Since the Forest Park Aquatic Center was completely renovated in 1996, the pool is likely experiencing its biggest leak in nearly 30 years.
After a couple years of investigating, last spring Park District of Forest Park staff found a leak on the west side of the zero-deck area of the pool.
The park board unanimously approved repairing the leak at a Dec. 18 meeting. A contractor will fix the leak as soon as possible, but the pool deck’s concrete may not be repoured until spring. Regardless, the Forest Park Aquatic Center will be open this summer.
“The amount of water that we were losing, it’s just not sustainable — environmentally, financially, everything in between,” Jackie Iovinelli, the park district’s executive director, told the Review.
At the end of every summer, the park district winterizes the pool and checks if it needs any wear-and-tear repairs.
But at the end of the 2022 season, staff noticed that water bills were higher than they should have been. The following year, the park district worked with the water department to document the potential loss of water. Before the 2024 swimming season, the park district steam lined the pipes underneath the pool that deliver water to the basin and take it to be filtered. Though expensive, steam lining fixed some cracks in the underground pipes without the park district having to break concrete.
“We didn’t see much of a change in 2024, so we began the chase,” Iovinelli said. That year, a leak detection company narrowed down the loss of water to an 8-by-4-foot area. “We’re assuming from what he found, and the amount of water that we were losing, that we have a pretty significant break in our pipes.”
Now, the park district is planning to actually repair the leak by cracking open the pool and fixing the pipes underneath.
At the park board meeting, Commissioner Betty Alzamora asked where the leaking water was going. Iovinelli answered, “That’s what we’re nervous about.”
Iovinelli later told the Review that park district staff have had that concern since 2022. She hopes much of the leaking water is getting absorbed into the ground or flowing into the sewer.
Also at the latest park board meeting, commissioners were informed that the pool would get sand filter repairs — a routine replacement every three or four years ago — after the leak is fixed. It will also get repainted, which is also done every three or four years.