This summer has been a scorcher, even this late in the season, and scientists say summers are just going to keep getting hotter due to climate change. Many Northeast Ohio residents turn to public pools as one way to stay cool.
On a hot, muggy afternoon in August, Lin Alexander watched her nieces run around in a splash pad at Halloran Park in Cleveland. Halloran is one of 21 outdoor public pools in Cleveland, 17 of which were open this summer, and all of which are free, according to the city.
“It goes from 2 foot to 3 foot, so it’s more accessible to the littler kids," Alexander explained. "It’s more room for them to play, because at Lincoln [Park] pool it’s straight 3 foot. And it’s just too packed.”
Many pools in the Cleveland area experienced overcrowding during the first heat wave in June, causing suburbs like Lakewood and Parma Heights to restrict their public pools to just residents, like other suburbs in the county have done for decades.
Although Alexander’s nieces enjoy the pool at Halloran, it’s just a pool. The park has a waterslide and a more intricate splash pad, but both were closed. These have been down due to ongoing complex mechanical issues, Cleveland said. Pool amenities aren’t the focus when the city is thinking about pool access, Cleveland Parks and Recreation Planning Manager Jay Rauschenbach said.
“They are hard to maintain, so some pools don’t open every single year, depending on maintenance needs, lifeguard needs as well," he explained.
But those amenities do draw people to pools in the suburbs. The recently renovated Foster Pool in Lakewood, for example, boasts several slides, diving boards and more water areas for young kids to play in. Alexander called pools like Foster with more amenities "cooler" than what's offered in Cleveland.
Danielle Toader recently moved from Lakewood to Parma Heights, but she still brings her kids to Foster Pool to play with their friends.
“When they redid this pool last year, they made it a lot nicer," she said. "It’s bigger. It’s got the splash pad and everything. It started to get a lot more crowded.”
Now, Foster Pool is only open to Lakewood residents and their guests.
"It would obviously be way too crowded if they didn't do it, but then again, it doesn't give access to people who don't have such a nice neighborhood pool to go to," Toader said. "So, in the end, I would say keep it open to everybody to be honest with you."
Lakewood's decision to restrict pool access is frustrating for Cleveland residents like Anne Hinebaugh, who lives on the Lakewood border. She used to take her kids to Foster Pool all the time but now has to take them to Halloran and other Cleveland pools, depending on what’s open, she said.
“This one has the potential to be more, but it’s not," she said.
And Hinebaugh gets frustrated trying to find information on which pools are open in Cleveland when, she said.
"The city of Cleveland website is horrible," she said. "It's really hard to get around to try to find. It's a little antiquated."
Cleveland is currently working on a comprehensive parks and recreation plan and improving communication about what's available is a big priority residents have voiced, Rauschenbach said.
Alexander also used to take her family to Foster Pool, she said.
"I think everybody should be entitled to go to the pool no matter where they're from," she said.
For some families, going to a pool that is only open for residents or members is a deciding factor. Akron resident Jenn Sahler buys an annual pass for her family of three to Waterworks Family Aquatic Center in Cuyahoga Falls, which costs her about $300. The pool is cheaper for Cuyahoga Falls residents and has members only days, according to its website. And it is massive, with a lazy river and several slides.
“We prefer being somewhere where membership is controlled," Sahler said.
According to the Ohio Department of Health, Summit County has seven outdoor public pools, far below The National Recreation and Park Association’s recommendation that communities have one pool per 20,000 people. Cuyahoga County comes close, with 0.84 pools per 20,000 people, but Summit County misses the mark, with 0.26 pools per 20,000 people.
Cleveland, for its part with 21 outdoor pools and 19 indoor pools, is about on par with national recommendations, Rauschenbach said.
"That's about equal to about 10.7 pools per 100,000 people," he explained. "That's one thing we're looking at is the level of service standard for pools. We cross reference other cities to see what other cities are doing as well, and we're on the higher end of the amount of pools per people."
Access to public pools is only going to become more important as climate change causes summers to get hotter and hotter, Rosie Tighe, an associate professor at Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs, said.
"I think that public pools and access to water and swimming are much more vital - it's actually becoming much more important that we provide these services," she said.
Of the seven outdoor public pools in Summit County, two are in Akron, and the city has undertaken renovations at both pools in recent years.
"They were 50 plus years old, and they caused us some headaches," Akron Wellness Program Coordinator Rachel Roukey said. "There were cracks and leaks and all of that good stuff that comes along with age."
The newly improved Perkins Woods Pool reopened for the first time last summer, and the city says Reservoir Park Pool will open next summer. Heidi Januszewski and her kids love the new Perkins Woods Pool, which boasts a climbing wall and a slide.
“It’s really clean, and it’s not packed," Januszewksi said, "There’s always room to swim, and it’s awesome to have it so close. People don’t realize it’s here.”
This is a big improvement from what Perkins Woods Pool used to be like, Roukey said.
"In the past without there being any sort of play features, it seemed like the thing that kids would do is just horseplay, because they're kids," she said. "And that's what they do, and there was nothing else."
Akron resident Sherri Marshall likes that the city’s pools are free, unlike Waterworks in Cuyahoga Falls.
“They charge more money, like ten more dollars and that’s not right," she said. "We pay the same amount for food and gas as everybody else, and we probably make a little less money. So to charge us more money is wrong.”
But pools are expensive to maintain, Roukey said.
“It’s really not economical at all and the fact that there’s no charge right now for entrance into the pool," she said.
Recent surveys in both Akron and Cleveland show that residents value having accessible public pools. Pool goers in both cities say they would love for there to be more.
"It'd be better if there was a lot more, because so many people get crowded, then the pools get crowded. But the benefit is that it's nice when on a hot day you can just cool off, even if you're just here for one session, it's cool," Alexander said. "It would be better if all the stuff was open. It would be probably a lot more funner, but even just having the little bit of water in the pool and splashing around is cool."
Neither city says it has any plans to build more. But both have invested in splash pads, which are much cheaper to maintain. Even then, residents say nothing beats cooling down from the summer heat – especially as climate change causes summers to get warmer - than swimming in their neighborhood pool.
