Temperatures are going up this week, and just as lines to get into Portland’s outdoor pools are about to get even longer, another city pool has closed.

Pier Pool (9457 N. Bristol Ave.) is currently shut down “due to a significant water line failure,” Portland Parks and Recreation said in a press release late last week. No reopening date has been set as of Monday.

Pier Pool is 84 years old, according to the city, and some of the inner mechanical parts of the pool date back to 1940.

On Thursday, the water level in the pool was dropping rapidly and efforts to refill it were unsuccessful. At that point, the city said, “Crews determined that Pier Pool has a broken pipe in its water circulation system. Water is draining from the pool and the remaining water cannot be circulated, chemically treated, nor heated.”

The fix could take some time: Contractors will need to dig under the concrete pool deck to determine what needs to be done. Then, they will have to work on the plumbing, fix the concrete and refill the pool’s roughly 180,000 gallons of water and heat it.

Swimming lessons at Pier Pool, along with staff and swim team practice, have been moved to Peninsula Pool (700 N. Rosa Parks).

Before this closure, Portland was already dealing with a limited supply of pools. In 2021, Multnomah County had 18 pools for 812,855 people. Even then, 56% of those pools were in zip codes where residents had a higher-than-average median household income.

Read more: These Portland-area zip codes have the most public pools and life-saving swimming lessons; see who’s left out

In the intervening years, that supply has diminished, especially in poorer neighborhoods. North Portland’s Columbia Pool, an indoor pool, is officially closed for good. The city is working on a replacement aquatic center that is expected to take five to seven years to complete.

Mt. Scott Pool, in Southeast Portland, also an indoor pool, is closed for up to two years for major renovations.

All of the city’s seasonal pools opened in June except one: Montavilla Pool is closed until Monday, July 22, “due to a planned upgrade to the pool’s plumbing that required a more complex solution to achieve federal compliance,” according to the city.

With the closure of Pier Pool, Portland Parks and Recreation is down to just eight functional pools, five of them outdoor.

– Lizzy Acker covers life and culture and writes the advice column Why Tho? Reach her at 503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com or @lizzzyacker

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