People are constantly looking for new ways to “go green,” and the College Park ice rink is no different.
Following Zamboni driver Chris Maggi’s idea to take water from the local pool and use it to lay down the rink, employees at the Herbert Wells Ice Rink have adopted the process of leaching the chemicals out of the Ellen Linson Aquatic Center chlorinated pool water for reuse.
“Chris Maggi said, ‘Why don’t we use some of the water in the pool to put down some of the ice?'” said Russell Barrett, the head Zamboni operator at the ice rink. “We looked into it, and what Chris said really made a lot of sense.”
Though the Olympic-sized pool holds enough water to fill the 255,000 gallons required by the ice rink, there are still events scheduled for the pool that prohibited the rink from using the full amount. Only 1,500 gallons will be taken for use in the rink.
Once removed, the water is stored for about half a week in vats in the sun to burn off the chemicals.
Barrett and his team re-hooked their pumps and hoses to the vats to begin laying the base layer of the rink Wednesday night, including the paint that goes beneath the upper surface of ice. The entire process will be completed by today.
“We’re trying to figure out how we can best recycle and reuse this water,” Barrett said. “It’s new for us and we’re working on it and feeling our way through it right now.”
After they devised a way to execute their plan, Barrett had no trouble getting the support of rink manager Joe Hampton, who said the environmentally friendly aspect of their plan was the selling point.
“Once pool season is over, the water just sits in the pool until next year. So it’s there, we should just go ahead and use it,” Hampton said. “Plus, everybody’s into the green thing nowadays and it helps with that, too.”
And they aren’t stopping there.
Once ice-skating season is over, Barrett said they will be looking for a way to return some of the water to the pool in April.
“The only thing we couldn’t do … is take the paint and put it back in the pool,” Barrett said, adding the paint might have toxic effects on the water. “However, you could conceivably cut off the top layer and mix it with the pool water and chlorine.”
The process seems to be a new one — Barrett and Hampton haven’t heard of other pool-ice rink combos trying such a procedure.
“I’ve never heard of this being done anywhere else where we’re pulling water out of a pool,” Barrett said. “It’s plausible that someone else thought of this. But I’ve been working at rinks for the last 20 years and never heard of this.”
Barrett said he and his team have been recording their steps. They plan on filming the process and eventually posting it on the Internet.
“It’s like anything,” Barrett said. “The first time you do it, it’s going to work and we’re going to get it done. But you smooth out the operation as you go. … This is new, creative and different for us.”
Barrett and Hampton hope their work hoping that their work at recycling resources will encourage others to do the same.
“It shows that we’re resourceful, that we’re thinking about our environment and not wasting our natural resources,” Hampton said. “It proves that something can be done. When other people have other situations they might think about what they can do to help go green. Little ideas might spark somebody else to think of something.”
jborowski at umdbk dot com
