Hop on in, the water's fine!

Get your trunks, swimsuits and pool noodles ready, the New Rockford pool is finally open!

On Thursday, June 16, the New Rockford pool opened its doors following a complex process of getting the pool’s water quality up to snuff, which didn’t exactly go swimmingly.

The original plan was to fill the pool with water once updates to the New Rockford Water Treatment Plant were up and running. But delays in that process forced Dennis Nybo, Park District Director, to change course.

Instead, they filled the pool with the same temporary water New Rockford residents have been using for two months, and simply added the necessary chemicals to bring the water to a high enough quality.

Images on Facebook of brown pool water, prior to treatment, showed just how much work the water needed before pool goers could jump in this summer.

However, less than a week after that picture emerged on Facebook, another post showed the pool’s water was already looking “swimming friendly.”

Now, Nybo assures the pool is ready and the water is perfectly safe for swimming.

“Let's put it this way, I would go swimming in it and I would let all my kids go swimming in it,” said Nybo. “If I knew it was not safe I would not open the pool.”

He added, “I’m a certified pool operator, and my license is on the line if I let people swim when it’s not safe.”

As required by law, a water sample was taken to the state lab on Wednesday, and after testing, it passed with flying colors, allowing Nybo to open the pool doors the next day.

As a result of delays, the pool is opening a few weeks later than normal, but with hot temperatures in the forecast, it couldn’t be ready a moment too soon.

Now that the pool is open and summer can finally get underway, pool staff have a busy summer ahead of them.

Monday through Thursday, the pool will be open from 12:30 - 4:50 p.m. and from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. for open swim, with an adult lap swim available from 5:15 - 6:15 p.m.

On Fridays the open swim goes from 12:30 - 5 p.m. with a one-hour adult lap swim from 5:15 - 6:15 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, the pool will be open to everyone from 12:30 - 6 p.m.

There will also be two sessions of swimming lessons at the pool. The first session is July 5-15, and the second is July 18-29. Both sessions are full in levels 1, 2 and 3.

“I know that the staff, the guard and everybody are excited to start working,” said Nybo. “We’re ready.”