AMHERST — With a pause in plans to rebuild the aging bathhouse at War Memorial Pool, and discussions beginning about whether the town needs two full-size outdoor swimming pools during the summer, Amherst Recreation officials say having both facilities is important to the aquatics program and summer camps.

Recreation Director Rey Harp told the Recreation Commission at its Aug. 12 meeting that having two pools — with War Memorial in the town center near the high school and middle school and the Mill River pool in North Amherst — is useful, in part because they are in different parts of town.

“As director, I think it’s an amazing resource that we have,” Harp said. “I think there’s all sorts of ways that having these pools helps us fulfill our mission in aquatics.”

After Town Manager Paul Bockelman announced in June that the town was putting off an application for a state Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant to help pay for the estimated $4 million to rebuild the War Memorial bathhouse, he told the Town Council that the need for two municipal pools could be studied.

While Harp said the question about having two pools is heard whenever repairs are needed to the pools, including in 2023 when the War Memorial pool’s opening was delayed, the latest questions are being prompted by the rising cost of the bathhouse renovations.

War Memorial and its bathhouse opened in 1956 and is the older and more lightly used pool, with Mill River Recreation Area pool opening in the early 1970s. Mill River also has a wading pool. But War Memorial was renovated in 2012 and continues to be the primary pool for summer camps, due to the proximity to the schools.

Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek said the town could revisit whether renovations may be possible to the existing bathhouse, even as the challenges grow each year with rusted pipes, bathroom and shower floors in bad shape and concrete and brick walls beginning to crack.

Should War Memorial be closed, Harp said this would add costs to the aquatics program. That’s because Mill River alone would be insufficient to meet the needs of campers. Using the indoor middle school pool more regularly would cost more money, he said, since it is owned by the regional school district, and payments would have to be made from the town to the district.

“It does cost us more money to rent the pools when it’s not our own,” Harp said, adding that while he would be paying for the same staff, there are other expenses to using the middle school pool.

“It’s to our benefit to have pools that we control,” Harp said.

Recreation Commission member Sanjay Arwade said while $4 million may be needed for the bathhouse, town officials are also talking about a large project that has the pool as its anchor, with many other amenities that drive up the costs of the project, including an amphitheater and a second municipal spray park.

“It’s actually quite surprising to me to hear that the continued operation of War Memorial might be something people are questioning,” Arwade said.

When members of the Town Council began the discussion, most appeared to support maintaining two pools and finding ways to lower costs of the new bathhouse.

Statistics about the town’s aquatics program presented by Bockelman in a weekly report to the Town Council show that there were 921 participants in summer youth swim lessons, which have been offered five nights a week. Of those children participating, about one in five received financial assistance to cover their swim lesson fees, while another 10% qualified for free lessons being paid for with American Rescue Plan Act money.

Adult swim lessons, which had 49 participants, though, were done at the Hampshire College pool, which is also used by the Amherst United Masters Team for Recreation Department-organized lunch-hour trainings at that pool for 40 participants.

At the middle school pool, the Recreation Department has put on Amherst Adapts, a pilot adaptive and inclusive swim lesson program for youths with physical disabilities and social-emotional differences. That included 32 swim lesson participants during six weeks of four-day programming.

Also at the middle school pool is the Amherst United Swim Team, with 63 athletes participating in the 10-month competitive recreational swim team for youths ages 6 to 18; and Amherst United Dive Clinic, a pilot program from the Recreation Department held last spring.