Until humans grow gills or Louisville strikes it rich, the battle over Breslin Pool will likely be fought every summer. The city closed the pool last year during a budget shortfall and despite the best efforts of the Irish Hill community, the pool has stayed closed ever since.

The city says urban pools are on the way out and splash parks (or spraygrounds or spray parks or splash grounds or any other combination of similar words) are on the way in. Splash parks are like safer, more attractive versions of the iconic open fire hydrants of big city summers past. They cost about $100 a week to maintain and require no life guards. Plus, they’re open nearly three times longer than pools. For these reasons, the city has set aside $300,000 in bonds to build a splash park at Breslin.

The Save Urban Pools Coalition (SUP) says a splash park is no replacement for a pool. They say older kids and adults don’t want to splash and no one can learn the life-saving art of proper swimming when there’s only wet cement around.

SUP wants to use $70,000 of the $300,000 in bonds to do some repairs to Breslin and re-open it next year. They’d operate it with the $75,000 raised and donated by local businessman Tom O’Shea.

I talked to SUP leader Cindy Brown-Kinloch about it, and she said that’s enough for O’Shea to hire an outside group to run the pool. (We won’t get into the propriety or legality of having an outside group operate a Metro Parks facility.) Metro Councilwoman Tina Ward-Pugh — an old friend of Brown-Kinloch — says she’s not sure that’s enough to cover staff and insurance for Breslin. Ward-Pugh would also like to see a plan for SUP to keep Breslin open for three years. Both sides seem to agree that if Breslin became self-sustaining in that time, the disagreements would be over.

Like almost everything in government, there are no easy answers to Breslin. There are also an endless number of questions that pop up from every scenario. If $70,000 in bonds are given to SUP, is that fair? According to Ward-Pugh, about 35 people used the pool every day when it was last open. Those aren’t all unique visitors nor are they the same people everyday, but for the sake of easy math, we’ll say that there’s an average of 35 core Breslin swimmers. That’s $2,000 per person for one to three years of pool operations.

Let’s say the pool becomes self-sustaining with just that $70,000 investment. Since it’s bond money, that’s $2,000, paid over 20 years for each person. That’s $100 per year per person. Since the pool will only be open for ten week seasons, it’s $10 per week per person for 20 years. Barring the additional expenses of staff and insurance (presumably raised by O’Shea or SUP), then it seems like the bond could eventually be repaid by pool admission.

Bear with me. I know this is extremely fuzzy math that does not take into account extra visitors or a drop in patronage caused by (potentially) higher admission. I’m also ignoring inflation, emergency expenses and any number of other factors.

So, with my highly-presumptive math, it might seem plausible to keep the pool open. But (and this is big) what other costs are there, financial and otherwise?

$70,000 for 35 people doesn’t seem as fair when you look at it from another angle. Right now, the $70,000 is part of the larger bond for Breslin aquatics, but should the city spend that much on about 35 people, when not everyone gets that kind of funding (on top of what the city already spends on each person)?

$70,000 is the cost of a Metro employee who is being laid off. It’s the cost of police equipment, safety gear for our parks, radios for ambulance drivers, locks on jail doors and tires on firetrucks. It’s an extra TARC stop in Valley Station or a new air conditioner in a Portland community center. It could make sure the alleys don’t get filled with trash but it could also buy HDTVs for a sports bar in 4th Street Live. Which is more important than 35 people? It can’t be said.

I know I’ve just drawn a big logical circle, but I hope it’s explained some of the debate captured in the spots on Breslin that are airing this week.