Injured veterans to lose rehab pool in White Center

His service as an Army paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division cost Cyril Miller two good knees. A couple of hundred rough landings can do that.

"I was a paratrooper; that's all you need to hear," said Miller, 71, who lives in West Seattle.

Miller, like some other local veterans, relies on Evergreen Pool in White Center and its weekly rehabilitation classes to feel better. Since leaving the Army about five decades ago, Miller has had both knees replaced, was diagnosed with diabetes and underwent six years of dialysis before receiving a kidney transplant in 2007.

But soon the county budget will cost him, too.

After June 30, Evergreen Pool, owned and operated by King County, will be shut down. That's because it's among the "lifeboat" of services funded for only half of the year due to the county's budget problems.

It would cost $92,472 to keep the pool open for the remainder of the year, according to the county budget office.

"It's a difficult situation the county's in right now. A lot of the financial tools we were relying on didn't come through," said Kevin Brown, director of the county's Parks and Recreation division.

A new two-story, $7.8 million therapy building, complete with a pool, locker rooms and a poly-trauma center, could be completed by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Seattle as early as the fall of 2010. But Miller said veterans will have nowhere to go in the meantime.

"We need that bridge. We need to start rehabbing these guys that are coming back from Iraq," said Miller, who chairs Veterans and Friends of Puget Sound, a group he created to get an aquatic rehab facility.

Between five and 15 veterans attend the four-times-a-week rehab sessions offered at the pool. There also are once-a-week kayaking sessions for veterans at the pool.

Along with veterans, the nine-lane pool hosts, among other groups, two high-school teams (Evergreen and Highline), cold-water survival classes, baptisms, area elementary schools and WhiteWater Aquatics, a year-round competitive swim team.

Firefighter Ed Marrs, who works for the North Highline Fire District and is president of WhiteWater's board of directors, said the closing of Evergreen Pool is yet another dose of bad news for a sport already reeling from similar cuts statewide.

"Our sport's being crippled," he said.

Marrs also worries that with the absence of a local pool, neighborhood youth will swim instead in local lakes with no supervision present. The North Highline Fire Department has pulled three kids and one adult out of Hicks Lake in the last few years.

"If they don't keep it open, people are going to find water," he said. "Kids are kids."

Both Marrs and Miller have been pleading their case to county officials in hopes of getting funding for the pool. This afternoon, they're scheduled to meet with Metropolitan King County Council members Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine.

"Just buy us some time," said Miller. "Six months if you can."

Maks Goldenshteyn: 206-464-2374 or mgoldenshteyn@seattletimes.com