Floating East River pool may open to the public next year under the Hochul plan

A plan for a floating, self-filtering pool in the East River could soon become a reality, New York officials said Friday.

A $16 million investment from the city and state created the floating pool, an initiative of the group Friends of + SWIMMING POOLwill open for testing this summer, with the goal of opening to the public next year, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference in Central Harlem.

The funding for the unique pool was one of several swimming-related projects that Ms. Hochul, joined by Mayor Eric Adams, announced on Friday as part of a broad effort to “help every New Yorker learn to swim and keep people safe in and around the water.”

The governor said her administration would invest millions of dollars in building new pools around New York to address the statewide shortage of lifeguards and increase the amount of swimming instruction available to state residents.

As summers get warmer and people turn to pools and waterways for escape, drownings in New York have reached record highs, Ms. Hochul said. In 2021, the last year for which data was available, 230 people drowned in the state. All deaths were preventable, the governor said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has done just that cited Drowning is the leading cause of death in children aged 1 to 4 years.

“If you can’t swim, what you think is a refuge, that break can become a death trap in the blink of an eye,” Ms Hochul said.

The initiative announced Friday reflects the largest statewide investment in swimming since the New Deal and will expand access to swimming for underserved communities, the governor said.

Shekar Krishnan, chairman of the City Council’s Parks and Recreation Committee, called the effort an “important piece” but said it was not enough to reduce the number of drownings in the city.

“If the mayor cuts free swimming lessons, cuts back on summer programs for children and hires fewer lifeguards than ever, a floating pool in the East River is nice, but it won’t save a child from drowning on Rockaway Beach,” said Mr. Krishnan . , said a member of the council’s Progressive Caucus.

New York City, like many other municipalities, has struggled in recent years to keep pools and swim programs open due to a shortage of lifeguards. The lack of lifeguards has led to reduced pool capacity, unannounced pool closureslong lines at public swimming pools and the cancellation of free swimming lessons.

Last summer, the city entered swimming season facing its worst ever lifeguard shortage. To attract new lifeguards, officials increased pay and retention bonuses, relaxed the city’s notoriously difficult swimming test and advertised lifeguards at high schools, job fairs and bus shelters.

A spokeswoman for the city parks department said Friday that it is too early to know whether there will be a lifeguard shortage this summer; The qualifying exams started last month and will last until February.

The investment in new pools, swimming programs and lifeguards by the state and city comes as Mr. Adams cuts funding for municipal services, including cuts that would freeze police hiring and close libraries on Sundays. The mayor blamed the cuts on the financial pressure caused by the flow of migrants into the city, which he said will cost nearly $11 billion over two years.

Critics have said the cuts will hurt working families by reducing the public’s access to important resources.

On Friday, Mr. Adams said building new pools, including +POOL, is critical for communities that have historically been denied access to free public pools like the one he grew up at.

“I had a water hose and hopefully the fire hydrant was on,” he said. “That was my swimming pool.”

The goal is to make +POOL free and open to the public, said Kara Meyer, executive director of Friends of +POOL, a nonprofit that also offers free beginner swimming lessons and other swimming programs.

The self-filtering pool project has faced many obstacles because the idea behind it is “so out-of-the-box,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. It has been in the planning stages for more than a decade.

But the influx of money from the state and the city, which allows the project to proceed under newly created safety regulations, it creates the potential for similar pools elsewhere in the city in the future, Mr. Levine said.

“The vision is that you could have several – three or four even – in New York City waterways,” he said.