On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 11:14:38 PM UTC-7, Danny D. wrote:
Have you ever dealt with a dirty water pump that just wouldn't
drain the last few inches? Is there a simple solution?

Kinda. You can put a sump outside the pool, and bridge to it with a siphon.
Then, with the sump six inches lower than the bottom of the pool, it siphons
from the pool down to the bottom, and the pump only leaves 3 inches
in the SUMP, not in the pool. You can get fancy with a backflow
preventer in the siphon, of the floating-ball variety, that will make
it easier to prefill the siphon hose.