Yellowknife (Sep 10/04) - The annual maintenance at Ruth Inch Memorial Pool is almost finished. Anxious swimmers should be back in the water in no time.

"Everything will be done on schedule and the pool will open again (on Sept. 13), said Brian Kelln, programs division manager with Community Services.

"This year it's just regular maintenance," said Kelln, whereas "last year we had a major retrofit of all our valves."

City workers have gone through a whole catalogue of changes and minor repairs. The pool was drained "so we can fix leaking or sticking valves -- just anything that's usually underwater," said Kelln.

Water is removed from and added to the pool on a daily basis, explained Kelln, but once a year crews "dump the pool" and fill it up with fresh water.

Additionally, crews are painting the change rooms, lockers and stalls, replacing the odd broken tile, and maintaining and fixing boilers and the air-handling unit.

Kelln explained that the air-handling unit brings fresh air into the building to keep the humidity around 50 per cent.

Each year, the fans have to be cleaned and checked.

"It's gone really well," said Kelln of the pool's yearly check-up.