Keep the sand, fix the leaks at Quarry Beach

The Batavia park board says it has gotten the message “loud and clear about what to do with Harold Hall Quarry Beach:

Ÿ Find a way to raise the water temperature.

Ÿ Figure out how to stop losing so much water.

Ÿ Keep the sand.

Ÿ Clean the place better.

Ÿ Stay open later and longer.

Those are the results reached after eight public “What to Do About the Q meetings, plus one lifeguards meeting conducted this summer at the beach. More than 100 people participated.

“We did get some great straight talk, park board President Patrick Callahan said when the report was presented Tuesday night. In 2008 voters rejected building a recreation center at a revamped Quarry Beach. “That referendum did spark the necessary conversation in this community about what the people want the Quarry to be, Callahan said.

Commissioner John Tilmon and Commissioner Nicole Corken volunteered to represent the board at the meetings.

“A couple of things I really heard about were the hours. People really spoke about those a lot, Tilmon said.

Primarily, people told them to find a way to seal the swimming hole, which is in a former quarry. That should warm the water up. The district estimates that up to 25 percent of the water is lost daily through fissures. Replacement water enters the pool at 58 degrees. The district is studying building a vertical “curtain of concrete slurry in the stone between the quarry and the nearby Fox River; it estimates that could cost up to $1 million, not including geological studies. District officials say the quarry began losing water when a dam was removed in 2004, causing the river's water level to drop. The quarry is higher than the river.

The guests at one of the meetings told the district it would be reasonable to ask voters to approve spending $2 million to $3 million to fix and upgrade the pool.

The sandy bottom is a key part of the quarry experience, the attendees said, even though it makes the water murky when swimmers stir up the sand. Some suggested going back to the days of the 1980s, when only half the facility had sand. For now, the district won't make any changes, said Quarry Beach manager Amber Schmidt.

The district got a poor grade on the cleanliness of the beach and bathhouses. In response, the district will assign a day porter to rake the beaches, pick up trash and clean the bathhouses when the facility is open. Currently, the bathhouses are cleaned in the morning before the beach opens. The lifeguards are supposed to maintain them during the day, but they don't have time, they told the district.

The district will open the pool three evenings a week next summer in a trial to see if attendance improves. It was open one night a week this year, but people said that made it difficult for working parents to visit the quarry. It also kept sun-sensitive people from being able to use the beach.

People also complained the swim season was too short. Quarry Beach was open just nine weeks this year, from mid-June to mid-August. The district said it did so based on the Batavia school calendar, plus the availability of lifeguards. But other pools in the area opened earlier and closed later, at least on weekends. The beach will stay open a week later in 2011, Schmidt said, if it can get lifeguards.

“I love that we have a plan for next year for the quarry, Corken said.