The start of the swimming season quickly took a difficult turn when the sand filter in the BHS pool was found to be broken.

According to Athletic Director Ryan Peters, the sand filter tank, about 35 years old, is to be replaced with a new, custom-manufactured one.

“The sand filter makes sure the pool is clean,” he wrote in an email. “It serves as a water filtration and purification system.”

“All swimming pools become saturated with organic debris, skin, hair, oils, and bodily fluids,” he added. “The sand filter takes all of that stuff and runs it through the filter so we have clean water to swim in.”

“They had to change the filter, but in order to change the filter they have to change the pipes and other stuff because everything’s so outdated,” senior Monica Colmenares said.

“If we swam in this pool without a working sand filter, it would be unsanitary, and the Health Department would shut down the pool,” Peters wrote.

It will take several weeks to build, and Peters estimates the cost to be around $50,000.

This week workers are cutting apart and removing the old steel sand filter tanks.

“The manufacturer of the new fiberglass replacement sand filter tanks will hopefully be delivering our new sand filter from Florida and it will be installed around the first of the year,” Peters wrote.

Not only does the pool construction impact the BHS and BMS swim teams, but community and youth swimmers as well.

With the BHS pool inaccessible, both the high school and middle school swim teams have been using this time to hold dry land exercises and weight room training. Night practices have been scheduled from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Hathaway Brown and Warrensville Heights High School pools.

“We used to have lifting and dry-land practices every week, so we’d have two days of full swim practice alternating with half exercise and half swim,” freshman Jaeho Kim said. “Now with the pool broken, we have to practice two hours every day.”

Swimmers are making the most of their time at HB; however, they are struggling with the schedule.

“The HB pool is really beautiful, but it’s inconvenient because we have practices really late and we get home around 10:00,” Colmenares said.

Additionally, according to sophomore Sanford Hong, the pool construction has limited their time in the water and has caused swimmers to stay up later than usual to finish up school work. On the other hand, despite this inconvenience, he said, the swim team has not given up hope and is determined to practice even harder.

Burget also remains hopeful.

“It’s terrible timing, but there’s not much we can do about it,” he said. “We’re lucky to find water we can swim in instead.”

In addition, Burget believes that this year is one for great development and improvement for the team, as there are very few seniors. He looks forward to a strong season and hopes to hold a few swim meets in our own pool this year.