OURAY – The Ouray Hot Springs pool is once again living up to the “hot” in its name.

Thanks to temporary repairs to the line that brings natural hot springs water to the pool from Box Canyon, the pool is now as hot as it gets, said pool manager Katherine Jenkins.

The pool had much lower water temperatures in recent months due to leaks to the line that goes over the Uncompahgre River. As a result, the Ouray City Council approved a massive project to not only rebuild and insulate the lines, but to capture more hot water for the pool.

But the temporary repairs have brought pool temperatures back to normal, Jenkins said, and the water is good and hot.

“With the (insulating) blankets on, it’s been up to 110 degrees,” she said. “And with the blankets off, it’s 105.”

Jenkins said the water has occasionally been a little too hot for the Polar Bears, a water aerobics group that uses the pool daily, but lap swimmers are grateful.

At times, the lap lanes, in the “cool” part of the pool, got down to 60 degrees, she said. But for several days now, the lap lane section has been holding steady at 70 and 72 degrees, she said, and she hopes lap swimmers will start coming back.

“Some people still came, but in full neoprene hoodies and wet suits,” she said. “A couple of hearty souls swam in 60 to 60 degrees, but they could just bear it and kind of moved in slow motion.”

The Ouray City Council learned about progress on the hot springs water line repairs from Rondinelli at its meeting Monday night, and that permanent repairs should be completed next month.

The huge project, where most of the work is below the river’s water line in steep-sided Box Canyon, will cost the city about $143,000. To pay for the work, the council earlier agreed to transfer $70,000 from the capital improvements utility fund, with the balance to come from a water use monetary settlement the city receives each year.

It’s worth it. According to Rondinelli, the city-owned pool will bring in $970,000 to city coffers this year.

As work has progressed, more hot springs and leaks have been tapped, he told the council, and an 8-inch line will replace the old uninsulated 6-inch.

Even with temporary repairs in place, Rondinelli said output from the hot springs has doubled, from 50 cubic feet per second to 100 feet per second.

Insulating the water lines will also save heat, he said.

“We’re using insulated pipe instead of PVC, because PVC pipe loses heat,” he said. “On the new pipes, we’re using 3-inch insulation with a protective layer of three inches of hard rubber, all mounted against the rock face.”

Two springs, the vault spring and the portal spring, provide water to the Box Canyon water line that goes to the pool, Rondinelli said. The current construction will bring all the water lines together.