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By Victor Kaisar

Public Swimming

Free public swimming a popular heat-beating option in 2024: City of Kamloops

Dec 2, 2024 | 4:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — The free public swimming offered by the City of Kamloops during heat waves in the summer made a big splash, according to data from the city.

Emergency Preparedness Manager Ty Helgason says the number of people using city pools on a daily basis more than doubled on days when the extreme heat response plan was active.

“Free public swimming was the most popular cooling resource, seeing an increase in daily swimmers from 300-to-350 up to 600-to-650, while the larger cooling centres saw low utilization overall with a daily average of 17,” Helgason told the city’s Safety and Security Select Committee.

“This response was active for a total of 22 days this summer and included the new free public swimming, free public skating and free seniors programming during extreme heat.”

Helgason says those initiatives will continue to offered in the future on days when the extreme heat response plan is activated. It is part of the city’s gradual move to a more diverse network of cooling options across the community instead of large centralized hubs like Sandman Centre.

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“That will definitely be part of the plan for next year,” Helgason said, when asked by Councillor Kelly Hall if free skating and swimming will be back next year.

“Is there anything we can do to enhance that? Hall added. “Are the other activities that we might be looking at that could be cooling opportunities for people in the community?”

“Yes, those would be some of the short- and long-term implementation items that came from the broader extreme heat response plan that was presented to council,” Helgason replied. “I know one of the primary short-term implementation items that we would like to see is misting stations. We’ve been working toward it and there is a business case going forward regarding that.”

You can find more details about the City of Kamloops’ Extreme Heat Response Plan here.