Long Bridge Aquatic Center pool hours limited due to lifeguard shortage

Starting tomorrow, Long Bridge Aquatic Center will limit its pool hours due to a lifeguard shortage.

On Monday, Arlington County announced that, beginning Thursday, the 50-meter competition pool would operate on a “revised schedule” on Thursdays and Fridays due to a “national lifeguard shortage.”

“We are aiming to minimize the impact as much as possible by closing the competition pool on Thursdays from 12-4:30 p.m. and Fridays from 4:30-10 p.m. through the months of October and November,” Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) spokesperson Jerusalem Solomon told ARLnow.

There are no planned activities during these adjusted hours and the leisure pool will be open for lap swimming, she added.

Below is the new schedule for the pool provided by the county.

Thursdays:

• The competition pool will be closed from 12-4:30 p.m., followed by regularly scheduled closures for aquatic programming from 4-5:45 p.m. The pool will reopen at 5:45 p.m.
• The leisure pool will be open for “family play time” and lap swimming from 12:30-3:30 p.m.

Fridays:

• The competition pool will be closed from 4:30-10 p.m.
• The leisure pool will be closed for classes between 4:30-10 p.m.

The shortage is partially because many students who lifeguard during the summer have returned to school, Solomon said.

She also acknowledged the county has had trouble finding applicants who meet the “necessary requirements” for the job.

“Lifeguards must successfully complete a lifeguard certification. In the past, DPR has required that all applicants already be certified, but DPR now offer certification courses free of cost to new hires in an effort to widen our applicant pool,” Solomon said.

For the aquatic center to be fully operational, Solomon says there needs to be ten lifeguards on duty at all times. To meet that standard, she noted the county would need to hire between five and 10 permanent part-time and temporary lifeguards.

DPR currently has an online job listing for “multiple permanent part-time and temporary Lifeguards” at the aquatics center, which opened in 2021.

The lifeguards would “work shifts as primary guards in the facility and monitor two bodies of water, including a 50-meter pool and a leisure pool with a water slide and other play features,” the job listing says. The listed hourly pay is $17.00-$23.44.