Just in case you missed this from last week. Let’s dive into the question:

Can the municipal pool at the Lake Worth Beach be repaired?

There is a very small but vocal group of residents here in the City of Lake Worth, along with a contingent from the Town of Palm Beach and others west of this City, who think the pool at the Lake Worth Beach can be fixed.

And once it’s fixed, which should only take a day or two, then everyone can go to the Beach and go splashing around in the pool once again. Just like the good ole days.

So let’s consider that question.

Is it possible to fix the pool?

Well. There is a wonderful product called “Pool Patch” available on the market. This product is designed to be applied on a dry repair surface and the curing time is just 3–4 hours. Then the pool can be filled with water!

According to The Home Depot, Pool Patch offers:

“[E]ase of workability and clean-up, rapid cure, high compressive strength, low shrinkage [emphasis added] and excellent bond strength.”

So next week some day if the City of Lake Worth had 80–100 pallets of Pool Patch delivered and hired 50–60 workers to patch the pool and they got done around noon could the pool at the Beach then be filled with water once again — after Pool Patch had cured in the late afternoon — and in a day or two the public could begin swimming and frolicking in the water in total, complete bliss?

Hardly. Pool Patch is a wonderful product.

But this product does not perform miracles.

There is no pool repair kit on the Planet Earth that can fix the pool at the Lake Worth Beach. The problem is not what you can see. The bigger problem is what you cannot see: What is happening under the pool. And a few other issues as well.

Click on image to enlarge:

Read it and weep, as they say.

To read more about the presentation given to the Lake Worth City Commission on August 7th by CPZ Architects click on this link.

Simply put. The argument comes down to whether or not this City of Lake Worth needs a large municipal pool at the Beach or one constructed somewhere else in this City for swimmers, water exercise and for public safety, e.g., teaching children how to swim.

And really now folks, seriously!

Does the Town of Palm Beach need another large pool nearby for lap swimming and to teach water sports like synchronized swimming?

Click on image to enlarge:

Image courtesy of Tom McGow from eight years ago. Some of you will recognize a former city manager, a former mayor and commissioners, and the current Vice Mayor Pro Tem Scott Maxwell who has been working hard ever since 2009 to fix all this mess at the Lake Worth Beach and Casino complex.

In conclusion, the Pool Patch Plaster Repair Kit cannot repair the City’s municipal pool at the Beach. And this information published in March 2010 is still very applicable to the present day:


Stand alone “rectangular pools” are a thing of the past and even our pool’s location by the beach is not enough of an attraction to draw people on a regular basis or attract swim meets. Across the nation older municipal pools are being shut down, often replaced by aquatic parks that cater to whole families.

No amount of “out of the box marketing” can succeed in bringing people to a facility that is no longer viable in today’s recreation market.

End of story.