Water and Power

At Heritage Park in Irvine, home of the nationally recognized swim club that sent gold medalist Amanda Beard and silver medalist Aaron Peirsol to the Olympics, utility bills have doubled from $7,000 a month to between $13,000 and $15,000.

At the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, the only facility in Southern California with two 50-meter pools, fees have been hiked 10% to offset energy costs that have risen to 2 1/2 times what they were a year ago.

And at the financially strapped Industry Hills Aquatics Complex in the City of Industry, which prepared 11 swimmers for the Olympic trials last summer, the doors are poised to be shut Sept. 9 in part because of skyrocketing utility bills.

“The cost has become insane,” said Gary Anderson, coach of the Rose Bowl Aquatics swim club and a former 10-time All-American at USC.

The energy crisis has become a serious issue for the rest of California in recent months, but even more so for the dozens of Southland pool operators and swim coaches, who were among the earliest victims of the power shortage.

Most aquatic facilities and clubs, faced with already slim profit margins, now find themselves slipping into the red as they struggle to keep up with the costs of running power-hungry swimming pools. Gas-powered heaters and electric motors must run around the clock to drive circulation systems and keep water temperatures at a comfortable level.

Swim coaches, whose duties normally include everything from accounting to cleaning the bottom of the pool, are now well versed on alternative energy sources such as pool covers and solar panels. Saving kilowatt-hours has become as important as shaving seconds off a backstroker’s time.

The situation is equally troubling for Southern California’s smaller aquatic facilities, which operate on even tighter budgets and cater to recreational swimmers. Coaches and facility operators say they have no choice but to pass costs on, and even that might not be enough. Some pools are slashing hours as a way to save energy and this winter, swimmers might have to find other lanes.

“The energy crisis is having a direct impact on our residents having to pay more for recreation,” said Andrea McGuire, senior recreation manager for the city of Newport Beach, which has a joint-use agreement with Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools to offer age-group swimming, water polo instruction and recreational lap swimming.

Despite the partnership, fees have doubled from $5 to $10 a month to cover rising utility costs. There was a plan to shut down one of the city’s two pools this summer, but an 11th-hour appeal by the city council has kept both operating.

In the Redlands Unified School District, fees jumped from $50 to $60 a hour for commercial swim clubs, and nonprofit groups saw their rates increase from $15 to $21 an hour to keep pace with the amount of electricity it takes to run the district pool’s circulation system 24 hours a day.

The Palisades Malibu YMCA, which leases its pool from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, has tried something different to avoid raising fees for its users, among them the Palisades High swim team.

They’re turning off pool systems at night and hoping a drop in temperature will offset some of the utility costs, which have risen about 40%, said Mark Elswick, the center’s executive director.

Though some swim coaches insist a drop in temperature can hamper a swimmer’s training and raise health concerns, Elswick said nobody has complained thus far.

“Because of the temperatures outside, it’s kind of refreshing,” he said.

Damon Garrison wishes he could say the same.

The Cypress Aquatics swim coach was forced to cut short about 40 practices last year because of unexpected brownouts that caused water temperatures to plummet at his Cypress College training facility. Children still clad in wet swimsuits, some as young as 5, sometimes waited more than an hour while Garrison scrambled to find rides home for everyone.

During that time, about 20 families--or about 15% of Garrison’s membership at Cypress Aquatics--left for other swim clubs, hoping to find more reliable training facilities.

“The kids were getting sick constantly,” said one parent, Gennady Shnayderman of Garden Grove, who now sends his two children to a swim club in Cerritos. “It was a great club with great coaches, but it’s hard watching your kids turn blue in front of your eyes.”

Garrison has since spent about $3,000 on backup generators and has made arrangements to use two area high school pools in case there are future closures.

Some facilities that took advantage of energy-saving equipment years ago are now reaping the benefits, from picking up swimmers shut out of other facilities, to markedly lower gas and electric bills.

Because of a unique, cost-effective heating system at Laguna Niguel Regional Park, for example, the pool will remain open year-round and its prices unchanged.

The heat-exchange system, installed during a renovation 12 years ago, works in concert with a nearby waste water treatment facility. Heated water used to cool a large turbine at the treatment facility is piped over water being circulated through the pool. The system cools the heated water, while warming the pool water.

While other facilities with a 500,000-gallon capacity like Laguna Niguel’s would pay $8,000 to $10,000 a month for heat, it spends about $8,000 a year, facility supervisor Tina Dittmar said.

“We beat the curve,” Dittmar said. “We’re in the catbird’s seat. Luckily, there were people smart enough back then who realized we needed that.”

The upfront cost of making transitions to those energy-saving systems, however, can be prohibitive.

Since the city began inquiring about raising fees, reducing hours or lowering water temperatures to save money, Kevin Perry, coach of the Fullerton Aquatic Swim Team, which produced Olympic champion Janet Evans, has spent considerable time looking into alternative sources of energy for his club’s training site at Independence Park.

Perry found several state and federal programs that assist those who choose alternative energy sources, and he is closely following proposed legislation that would provide homeowners, businesses, cities and school districts with financial incentives to use alternative electricity and heating sources.

“Solar power is green power, and that’s very desirable,” Perry said. “Grants, loans, buy-back programs and rebates from federal and state sources for solar generation of electricity and thermal heat is very appealing.”

Still, it would cost about $80,000 to outfit Independence Park’s 900,000-gallon pool facility with solar panels. Perry, who estimates it would take about five years to earn back that money, plans to present city officials with 92 pages of research on alternative sources of energy this week.

“If there’s a way we can find a more effective method of managing our facility, it would help everybody involved,” he said.

Industry Hills had conservation in mind when it built its swim facility on a former landfill, using a combination of methane gas from the rotting trash and underground boilers to heat the pool. But over the years, the quality of the gas became weaker, and the pool has become more expensive to maintain.

The swimming facility is part of the Industry Hills Sheraton Resort, which also includes two 18-hole golf courses, jogging paths, tennis courts and an equestrian center on 640 acres of rolling hills. The swimming complex is owned by the City of Industry and leased to a property management company.

Richard Shipherd, coach and executive director of the Industry Hills Aquatic Club, said the facility lost about $85,000 last year, spending $103,000 on utilities, and anticipates natural gas costs will double this winter. Shipherd said he received a letter from the property management company in May, stating it will close the facility Sept. 9 unless a plan can be worked out to reduce operating costs.

“The case to close the facility is very much dependent on the alternative [energy] plans we present and the trend of energy costs for the next few years,” Shipherd said.

Officials plan to make a presentation to the city council, hoping to form a partnership that will help cover some of the immediate costs.

Kevin Clements, who will be a senior at Auburn in the fall, has been a member of Industry Hills since he was 16. He fears that next summer his hometown pool might not be available.

“That would be horrible,” said Clements, 21, who missed qualifying for the 2000 Olympics by less than a second in the 200 individual medley. “I could always train [indoors] at Auburn, but I like the atmosphere at Industry Hills. I like being outdoors.”

At Heritage Park in Irvine, it is hoped a renovation plan will include energy-saving alternatives to the current heating and circulation system. Thankfully, said Brian Schonfeldt, supervisor of the swim complex, the city is currently absorbing those costs.

It is the rare facility, such as in the swimming-rich Saddleback Valley School District, where the energy crisis hasn’t been a distraction.

Coach Don Stoll of El Toro High, which boasts one of the better on-campus swim complexes in Southern California, one that is typically in use from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., said the district has not asked him to conserve energy, not even by covering the pool at night.

“I’m sure they’re concerned, though,” Stoll said. “It costs $75,000 a year to heat the thing.”