It is hot. It is humid. It is summer, and half of Newtown is without a pool.

It has been nine years since the pool at Dickinson Park was drained for the final time, with health officials and Parks and Recreation administrators advising that the 50-year-old swimming hole was no longer cost-effective nor a safe place to swim due to insufficient fresh water flow through the cement pond. The decision not to spend the money for replacement and renovation of the pool off of Brushy Hill and Point O’ Rocks Roads, estimated by a Boston architect in late 2005 to be upward of $4 million, left residents in the western portion of town without a nearby public facility in which to cool down on the hottest days of summer.

Treadwell Park, which has a recreational pool, is located in Sandy Hook, off of Philo Curtis Road. The beach at Eichler’s Cove, located on the shores of Lake Zoar off of Great Quarter Road, opened in 2008 and has gradually established itself as an alternative — to those bordering Monroe.

Since the closure of the Dickinson Park pool, the Parks and Recreation Department has expressed its desire to build a recreation center housing a pool, but it has never requested funds from the Board of Finance to replace just the pool in the vicinity of Dickinson Park. Building a pool as part of a recreation center sends the cost of a swimming facility soaring, and Parks and Recreation requests for such a facility have repeatedly been sunk.

Hundreds of families loved the pondlike environment offered by Dickinson Park for half a century. Hundreds of families would still appreciate a break from piling into the car (forget about letting your preteen bicycle to Treadwell or Eichler’s Cove) and adding another hour of back and forth travel to an afternoon’s outing at the Sandy Hook swimming spots.

There was a glimmer of hope this spring that swimmers in Newtown’s westernmost neighborhoods would have a pool a few miles closer than the two current options. That is, until townspeople could not agree on the plans for a community center at Fairfield Hills, funded mainly by a GE donation of $15 million. But still, it would be an indoor pool. With or without a retractable roof, it would mean going into a building on a summer day for a swim — not exactly an idyllic scene of summer fun. Also, with a newly charged commission wading into deep waters to determine the best way to use that GE money and floundering in their uncertainty for the time being, hopes for a centrally located pool anytime soon have again dried up.

Upgrades to Dickinson Park have given citizens new hiking trails, improved tennis courts, a new playground, a skate park, and a band shell for community concerts. They are all welcome and necessary improvements to the park. But they do not provide the water fun and exercise that a pool does.

The loss of Dickinson Park pool is old news, and the lack of a centrally located public swimming facility is also getting old for people not living in Sandy Hook. The town may have made a mistake in bypassing a pool-only remedy at Dickinson in favor of a community center complex that is truly so complex that it will take a very long time to realize. Meanwhile, years go by, costs rise right along with the summer temperatures. Now, in the dog days of August, it is a good time to reconsider a less expensive outdoor alternative. Imagine an outdoor pool settled into the lawns and trees of Dickinson Park, accessible to everyone in town.

Now that would be cool.