Use of LaSalle's Vollmer Complex limited, again

For the third time in 13 months, use of the Vollmer Culture and Recreation Complex in LaSalle has been limited.

Town employees arrived at the complex at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday and found a burst pipe in the filter room that services the indoor pool.

The pipe carried heated, filtered water to the pool. The break flooded the filter room and caused the pool's temperature to plummet to 18 C, or 65 F. As a result, public pool activites were cancelled Wednesday.

Damage is estimated at $1,000, according to Terry Fink, the town's director of culture and recreation. He said no other equipment suffered water damage because it's all elevated off the floor.

Fink said the break simply came "at the end of the pipe's lifecycle."

"Everything at some point has a life cycle. It may have just been a little weak at one point and it just gave way," Fink said.

He said the pipe was just inspected on both Dec. 24 and 25.

"Sometimes with breaks you don’t get the little drip that happens. When it goes, it goes. In this case, there was no indication through observation ... that we saw any moisture at all. It just broke," he said.

Fink said the piping met "all the industry standards and the building code of when the Vollmer was built."

The $20-million complex opened in 2008. Since then, it's experienced numerous closures due to design flaws and weather occurrences:

• When the facility first opened in 2008, one of the ice pads had to be reconstructed after a crack in the floor was found.
• In November 20011, the complex was closed when it flooded during a severe thunderstorm.
• In April, high winds nearly ripped off a portion of the building's roof.

The flawed ice pads were guaranteed by contractor and replaced at no cost.

However, the flooding forced the town to increase the size of the retention pond, change the pitch of drainage at the site, alter the parking lot and add a 75,700-litre holding tank. That project cost an estimated $20,000.

Roof repairs cost the town between $15,000 and $20,000.

Fink said the town still has confidence in the complex.

"We certainly stand by it," he said. "We have all the confidence in the world with the structure of the building and its functions."