Swimming Pool and Area Study
Northwest Portal is working with the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office to update information on swimming pools, swimming areas, and places where you can swim. We are verifying information that we have already collected and will be gathering information on additional swimming pools that are open to the general public, public places with designated swimming areas, and public places where swimming is identified as an activity.
The data set includes:
Public pools
School district pools, even if they are restricted to student use,
Other pools that that do not have public swims but are used by local swim teams for practices or meets. These include private clubs, University pools and HOA pools
Designated swim areas in parks or day-use areas. These were identified based on the following criteria: A map shows a swimming area, a website identifies the location as having a swimming area or you can see a designated (marked off) swimming area on the area photo.
The types of users who can use the pools were classified as:
Public swim: anyone can pay a fee to swim (no membership required),
Swim team use but no public swim,
Students & outside groups: This is based on a 2021 study of school district recreation facilities. This category is used for schools that allow groups to rent the facilities if we did not identify a swim team using the pool.
Students only: pools that the district indicated were only for student use.