A wall has literally come between the two sides in a dispute over the potential noise at a community pool proposed for Logvy Park in Calistoga.

Concerned Citizens of Calistoga, which represents neighbors living near the pool site, was formed last spring to voice neighborhood objection to some of the aspects of the pool project -- primarily the noise. Its concerns prompted the city to hire a consultant to do a noise study, and in response, the group hired a noise expert to evaluate the results of that study.

According to Bob Bragg, spokesman for Concerned Citizens of Calistoga, city hall broke off negotiations Monday after rejecting the group's suggestion that a sound-dampening wall be built around the pool.

"We are disappointed and saddened over this development," Bragg said Tuesday. "We had hoped to ... reach an agreement that would be acceptable to both the community and the neighbors who live adjacent to the site."

Calistoga City Manager Jim McCann said the city has tried to compromise.

"After many months of meetings and looking at various configurations we were hopeful of finding a way to build the pool and address the concerns of our neighbors, but their suggestions were quite different than the various alternates discussed with and they didn't fit," McCann said. "We finally had to decide to move forward. We will have a pool and will move ahead with construction as soon as possible while continuing to find a compromise."

Bragg said the city of Calistoga had offered to erect an eight-foot-tall wall at the property line parallel to the pool, but the citizens group rejected that proposal.

"Our expert told us an 8-foot-high wall that far from the pool would do virtually nothing in terms of mitigating the noise," Bragg said. "It would be too low and too far away."

A wall would have to be built immediately adjacent to the pool and high enough to contain the sound, he said.

The citizens group proposed a 16-foot-high wall and changing the project's layout so that a planned auxiliary building would be situated between the pool and the neighborhood, acting as an additional sound barrier. Their proposal is based on a scenario in the city's own noise study.

The group's suggestion was rejected "in its entirety" in a letter faxed from the city of Calistoga to the group's attorney on Monday, Bragg said.

A second alternative in the city's noise study also suggests repositioning the project's layout and location to use the pool buildings to buffer the noise. Both city noise study alternatives suggest using walls as high as 16-feet at the pool buildings, not at the property line, to further reduce any noise.

"At our last meeting with the city, we pointed out their own study showed our neighborhood would go from the quietest to the loudest in town," said Kevin Murphy, a member of Concerned Citizens of Calistoga. "Their only response was they felt the area near the Calistoga Mineral Water bottling plant might be louder."

The group plans to consult with attorneys before deciding the next step. Bragg says the city is not leaving Concerned Citizens of Calistoga "much choice."

Bragg said the group supports the pool, but that members want it "built right."

"The city erred early in the process by not investigating the noise issue back in 1999 when it was raised in their own environmental documents," he said. "What could and should have been resolved years before was ignored until a couple months ago.

"It's a disservice to the neighbors and to the community that has worked so hard to get this project completed," he said.