On Thursday, from 4-6:30 p.m., the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board will host a second open house for the just-opened Webber Park Natural Swimming Pool in north Minneapolis, giving the public another chance to tour the $6 million chemical-free pool, which took the city 10 years to build. You can't, because there aren't any - until now. Quick, name a city in North America with a natural public swimming pool. JNorth Minneapolis’ Webber pool, the country’s first natural public swimming pool, to hold another open house North Minneapolis’ Webber pool, the country’s first natural public swimming pool, to hold another open house “It’s nice to be able to bring them here and to have a nice place to cool off and enjoy.” “They visited me from Las Vegas,” she said of the young girls. In north Minneapolis, residents are already appreciating having the pool in their neighborhood, said Cindy Aegerter, who on Tuesday watched her two nieces play on swings at the park. and Canada, as they begin to realize the importance of the system that eliminates the need for chlorine and other chemicals. Today, Europe has 20,000 public and private natural swimming pools, according to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. In recent years, however, natural pools have become increasingly attractive to people the U.S. In 1998, Germany opened the first public natural pool. Austria opened the first of such pools in the 1980s - and it was private. Natural swimming pools aren’t common in the United States. Then fresh water is pumped back into the pool, which can hold a capacity of 500 swimmers and is open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. In addition to the filters and plants, the pool is vacuumed daily. During the recycling process, the water streams through biological filters into a nearby regeneration basin. The basin contains about 7,000 aquatic plants rooted in layers of limestone and granite to keep the pool clean. Located at 4300 Webber Parkway, the pool features four sections: a nearly four-foot deep upper pool, 6-foot deep lower pool, a jumping platform and a lap pool, which serves as a training space for amateur swimmers.Īll together, the pool holds 500,000 gallons of water, recycled every 12 hours. That’s because it’s a chlorine-free pool and uses filters and plants that act as organic cleaners, according to the park board, not unlike a stream, lake or wetland. It’s better for the environment and for users.” “It’s part of what keeps our Park system the number one park system in the United States. It does have a color - translucent pea green, which may be fine with those accustomed to lakes.“It’s innovative,” she noted. One happy bather said she liked getting out of the water with neither the smell of chlorine nor lake water on her skin. Cold, open-air showers are on the deck, but there are no locker rooms. Only bottled water is allowed in the pool area.ĭon’t expect a cleansing shower after a dip. The only opportunity for refreshments Sunday was from the pizza truck parked on the street. Tree cover is virtually nonexistent so sunscreen is important. The on-deck facilities are similarly spartan: a handful of bolted down bus-stop style benches provide the only seating other than grassy ground. There are no bouncing springboards or twisting water slides. The pool has additional areas of medium depth and a diving well with a faux wood diving platform that appears to resemble a lake raft.
While the lap area has black lines on the bottom with crosses to signal proximity to the oncoming wall, there are none of the usual vertical lines on the walls, which makes the distance surprisingly difficult to judge for those used to flipturns.Ī walled-off kiddie pool and a shallow end both have zero-depth entries. There’s a 25-yard, four-lane lap-swimming section with lane lines always set up to keep swimmers from veering into each other.
The waters provide room to roam and offerings for all tastes and abilities. Its best feature is the price: It’s free, but open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Long before it opened, the pool got national attention for its chlorine-free natural filtration system and naturalistic design. Bathers kept it busy if not at capacity all weekend. Overdue and over budget, the pool finally opened last Friday. The best preparation for a visit to the new north Minneapolis Webber Park pool is to think of it as an urban swimming hole.