In today’s Seattle Times, Paula Bock writes about The Power of the Pool: Issues of class, culture and political priorities swirl.  Excerpts:

Consider these startling numbers: Nearly 60 percent of African-American children between the ages of 6 and 16 can’t swim, and they drown at three times the overall rate, according to a recent study by the University of Memphis. In Washington state, Asian-American children and adolescents have the highest rate of drowning — 18 percent of the deaths even though they are 7 percent of the state population. …

Historically, black Americans haven’t had easy access to pools, so a disproportionate number don’t know how to swim, may not have insisted their children learn how and, in fact, may have encouraged the kids to stay away from the water, says Mickey Fearn, manager of Community Connections for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

…"With water," Fearn says, "it’s all about confidence. Having the confidence you’re going to be safe…"

In Seattle, Fearn says, you look at all the water and if you can’t swim, "you don’t go kayaking, canoeing, water skiing or sailing, nor do you think of creating businesses in those areas because you have no rapport with the water. Marine sciences, running a charter boat, the fishing industry — all that is cut off."

LAST YEAR, the parks department taught 261,787 swimming lessons. Of those, 14,000 were free, part of a voucher program for third- and fourth-graders; 66 percent of those kids said they’d never swum before. . The city doesn’t track the ethnicity of general pool users or of children in swim lessons, but they do know 40 percent of the 800 swimmers in the summer youth swim league are children of color; a third of the beach lifeguards are people of color; three of the 18 pool coordinators are nonwhite.

If you don’t learn to swim by the time you’re a teen, what’s the likelihood you will? City aquatics director Kathy Whitman sighs. "The population we have to work hard to bring in is those teenagers," she says. …

Teens, she says, prefer the beaches. Perhaps that’s because it’s not so much fun to hang out in hourlong shifts at an indoor rectangular pool (eight of Seattle’s 10 pools). Why not build another outdoor pool?

…The city recently completed a study that found significant demand for outdoor pools and outdoor pool recreation. Mounger Pool in Magnolia, for example, turned away 58 youngsters who wanted to be in Summer Swim League and 80 3-year-olds who wanted lessons. Mounger had almost as many pool visits last year as Evans Pool at Green Lake and more than Rainier Beach Pool, which are open all year.

Also, a recent, related article: New study: 58 percent of black children can’t swim