The Live Oak Memorial Pool in Oakland -- utilized by the CUDA swim team -- is being closed on July 1, 2011.

The Oakland Parks and Recreation Supervisor announced this to CUDA representatives earlier today and the closure intends to be permanent.

This same story is unfolding all across the country. Pools are in needs of repair and nobody has capital, and they make a good target for closure because of the high operating costs dinging cash-strapped cities.

The Huffington Post published a story today (link below) about this trend. What is interesting is that back in the 1930's -- that other Great Depression -- pools were built to stimulate the economy as public works projects. Now they are being dismantled.

I don't have the numbers for Live Oak's operating costs. Huffpo's article focuses on a pool in Anderson, South Carolina, which is struggling to balance operating and insurance costs with a budget deficit.

Newer facilities are built as water parks instead of swimming tanks and are able to bring in more money per customer. I guess people like to play in the water but don't necessarily want to learn how to swim.

The Vancouver Pool I covered in this blog had both - a water park side (w/ lazy river) and an olympic sized pool (link below, with pictures.) If swimming centers are going to survive in the future, that's probably how they will need to be designed.