Edmonton to mull swimming options at Hawrelak Park

2011 study suggested cost to make lake water safe would be $60M

Edmonton’s infrastructure team will dive into the possibilities for making the Hawrelak Park lake available to the public for swimming, searching for an option less expensive than the $60-million price tag brought forward the last time a possible renovation was on the table.

Councillors hope any potential work on improving water quality to make the lake safe for seasonal swimming can be done in tandem with the park’s 10-year rehabilitation project set to begin in 2023.

When the city last studied the possibility of making the lake sustainable for long-term swimming in 2011, it estimated a cost of about $60 million, which sparked caution at council’s community and public services committee meeting Wednesday.

After hearing from aquatic scientists and researchers, councillors want the city to explore cheaper options with new technologies developed over the last nine years that could allow for a more natural swimming experience rather than deepening and lining the lake to make it more like a pool.

“If we’re going to be doing work anyway, now is the time to include this rather than going back many years later and retrofitting the lake,” Coun. Sarah Hamilton said after the meeting.

“What would it take for us to bring the water quality up and what would it take to make it swimming quality?”

These are questions city staff will spend the next year exploring as part of a study on the current status of the water and the options and costs of making it more accessible to the public.

Hamilton isn’t sure public swimming is the right fit for the space, but maybe something in between that will allow for more use of the lake.

“I think we have lots of outdoor public swimming pools. Frankly, If it’s too cold to swim at Queen (Elizabeth) or Oliver, it’s probably going to be too cold to swim in the Hawrelak lake. I don’t necessarily think that swimming is the solution,” she said.

“But being able to boat, being able to learn to use watercrafts safely before going on the river, those are opportunities for recreation in our city that we don’t currently have.”

About $70,000 is spent annually to temporarily bring the lake into good swimming condition for international triathlon events, mostly through chlorination to meet the necessary health regulations.

But there are always uncertainties with this process, including in 2015 when the race was threatened by an advisory over a bloom of blue-green algae.

With the International Triathlon Union’s grand final race set for Edmonton this year, the local triathlon body is hoping water quality improvements can eliminate these risks in the future and reduce costs.

After a year-long study, the city is expected to return with options for expanded use in early 2021.