The next move belongs to the state.

That seemed to be the position of Kenmore City Council as it deliberated the future of the Carole Ann Wald pool in St. Edward State Park.

At their regular meeting July 12, councilmembers and City Manager Frederick Stouder said there is an expectation the state will act now that the city has completed an engineering study of the closed pool, which is owned by the state but generally has been run by private operators.

According to the city-sponsored engineering study, some $919,000 in repairs are needed to immediately reopen the pool and keep it operational for another five years.

Speaking to council, Geoff Anderson of ORB Architects said his organization couldn’t determine the exact year the Wald pool was built. But he added the pool certainly has exceeded the 25 years such structures generally are meant to last.

“You’re well past the useful life of most of those systems,” Anderson said.

All in all, ORB made roughly 12 recommendations regarding the pool, ranging from repairing an underground leak in pool piping to replacing damaged ceiling tiles and removing mold.

One major recommendation was to insulate the pool building, the hope being to reduce what ORB described as excessive energy bills.

Director of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, Rex Derr was to appear at a Kenmore council meeting July 19. Local officials hoped they would have a clearer understanding of the state’s position following that session, which occurred after the Reporter’s deadline. Stouder said the city’s expectation is the state will take some sort of action, but there are no guarantees.

On July 12, local leaders talked about the state at least agreeing to look for a new pool operator. Mayor David Baker and others said their understanding always had been the state might take on that task once it knew more about the condition of the pool. In regard to repairing the pool, the prevailing opinion of local officials seems to be that Kenmore should not pay that bill alone.

Deputy Mayor Milton Curtis said that since the pool belongs to the state, it doesn’t seem fair that Kenmore pay for all repairs. But Curtis later also noted the Wald pool is unique.

The St. Edward pool is apparently the only indoor public pool the state owns.

According to Curtis, state officials have said that indoor pools are not part of their overall mission. But Curtis added those same state officials certainly knew the pool was there when they took over the St. Edward seminary complex of which the pool is a part.

As of July 12, ORB had not presented the city with a final bill for its study of the pool. Council had authorized up to $25,000 for the work. Anderson said some further testing may be needed, particularly dye testing to find what is apparently a newly discovered leak in the pool. He also recommended some further structural tests, but did not immediately have a price tag for those tests. Stouder said he expected to know the cost of any further analysis by the July 19 council session.

The Wald pool closed Dec. 3 when the second private operator in less than a year pulled out because of reported financial losses. No new operator has been sought.