News the Langley Township will reopen the pool at Aldergrove Credit Union Community Centre (ACUCC) in a few weeks was music to the ears of Aldergrove Sea Monkey’s Swim Club representative Anna Nosek.
“We feel for the Township, we do. We just wish they would invite us in on the dialogue,” Nosek told the Star after submitting a 28-page Return to Swim plan to the municipality July 7 and hearing no word back.
On July 27, Township council voted to partially re-open ACUCC outdoor pool facilities, likely in mid-August.
Mayor Jack Froese said it wasn’t a “full reopening of rec centres,” and the centre’s Otter Co-op Outdoor Experience pool wouldn’t have nearly the number of users it did before the pandemic.
RELATED: Langley swim club unsure about Township pool reopening
The two-year-old Aldergrove Sea Monkey’s swim club – which refers to ACUCC’s pool as its home – had planned to host the Otter Co-op Outdoor Experience’s first swim meet at the end of March.
“We had high hopes,” Nosek said, on behalf of the more than 15 swimmers who trained with the club before the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the abrupt shutdown of organized sports.
“By this point in the summer, some of our swimmers would have likely been invited to regionals,” Nosek mourned, which take place the first week of August.
READ MORE: Skating, swimming return to Langley Township rec centres
Returning to swim
The plan for when Sea Monkey swimmers re-enter the pool is to enforce health and safety measures “above and beyond” what the BC Summer Swimming Association (BCSSA) has outlined in its own Return to Swim plan.
“We will come with our own lifeguards,” Nosek elaborated.
Athletes, as well as Sea Monkey coaching staff, will be screened for COVID-19 upon their arrival for practice.
Swimmers are to use a separate entrance when arriving and leaving, she added.
Once entering the pool, coaches will ensure swimmers are kept three to a lane, eight metres apart.
Instead of swimming back the same 25-metre lane they first ventured down, athletes would use a second lane to return.
RELATED: No signs of Aldergrove’s new pool reopening this summer
Additionally, Nosek stressed “there will only be two places they go – the lane or the tent.”
“Whatever they come with would be stored in their own Rubbermaid container and placed under a tent on the pool deck.”
Change rooms would likely be off limits to the swimmers at the Aldergrove pool, Nosek added.
