Public swimming areas have cleanliness rules for a reason
By Elizabeth Neff
The Salt Lake Tribune
Shirleen Tingey, a lab technician, analyst, and sampler for Davis County's Health Department in Farmington, looks for bacteria Friday in samples of pool water. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune )
In his years helping to police water quality in Davis County pools, Delane McGarvey has seen changes for the better.
Since the mid-1990s the state has required public pools to have certified operators - a measure that includes mandatory water safety testing, training and record keeping.
Even so, McGarvey says the county closed a record number of pools last year due to water standard violations. In 2005, 78 pools were closed, well above annual numbers in the 20s in years past.
A Salt Lake Tribune review of Davis County pool water inspection records from the past 18 months shows the best water quality is at public pools and swim schools, where just over one-quarter of facilities had water quality violations.
The worst: private gyms and health facilities, where eight of the 10 facilities monitored had violations. Hotels and motels followed, with 73 percent of all facilities having violations. Private community pools at apartment complexes and condominiums had a 44 percent violation rate.
Chlorine alone doesn't protect the public from water-borne illnesses. McGarvey, the county's environmental health director, said proper levels of disinfectant are required and even then pool water can change hour to hour, based on factors such as the number of people in the pool or the weather.
"Each pool is a dynamic environment," he said.
Hitting the showers: The reason for those "Please shower before using the pool" signs? Most recreational water illnesses enter water through fecal matter. They can also spread through contact or swallowing contaminated water.
Exposure to the five most common bugs - cryptosporidium, E-coli, giardia, shigella and Hepatitis A - usually results in diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But it can also mean skin rashes and ear or respiratory infections.
The CDC says that from 1984 to 2002 it recorded an increase in reported diarrheal outbreaks, resulting in about 19,000 water-related illnesses over that time period. Officials attribute the rise to increased recreational water usage and improved detection.
Utah tracks the number of cases of the five most common causes of water-related illnesses, but determining how they were transmitted is difficult, officials say. Most of the cases stem from contaminated food or human contact, such as sexual contact.
Last year's increased numbers of violations might be a result of better training and more experience given to inspectors in recent years, McGarvey speculated. He said complaints from the public about pool water to the health department are few.
Public facilities monitored: Even Clearfield's new Aquatic Center, which opened in 2005, had high bacterial counts in the pool's splash pad and other areas earlier this year.
But most, like Kristee Malan of Layton, say they and their kids enjoy the pool with little fear. As she visited the aquatic center last week, she recalled one occasion when someone had an accident.
"Someone's diaper leaked and they cleared the pool for 45 minutes while they cleaned the pool," said Malan. "They caught on to the problem quickly and did a good job taking care of it, so it didn't bother me at all."
Cheryl Roman of West Haven has been a nurse for 28 years and is aware of the dangers of bad pool water. She takes her kids to the Clearfield Aquatic Center three or four times a year, but keeps an eye on how a pool is run. "You can tell your kids not to swallow the water and inevitably they do," she said, "but I feel like this pool's probably cleaner than any other pool I've been to."
Aquatic supervisor Donna Russell said the areas in question were superchlorinated afterward and that her facility tests the water every two hours, more than required by state rules. She noted the pool is equipped with a special system that sanitizes the water each time it is filtered.
"We are doing everything the health department tells us to do at these levels," she said. "Whenever you pull a sample out of a pool, you never know what you're going to pick up. We keep our water at levels as best we can."
One unusual source of violations was the pool at Bountiful's Lakeview Hospital, mainly used for water aerobics. It had four violations between February of 2005 and June of 2006, according to county records.
Troy Wood, an assistant administrator at the hospital, said if any problems are found, immediate action to correct the problem is taken and patients cannot use the pool.
"Because it's not easy to get perfect, it's heavily monitored by the state," he said. "That's a good thing."
In hot water: In shallow baby pools and hot whirlpools, warm temperatures and small spaces create a perfect environment for germs to multiply.
Men's whirlpools at the Sport Forum in Woods Cross, which closed in April, and Xcel Spa & Fitness in Bountiful were both cited during the past 18 months.
Ryan Forsey, club manager for Xcel, said the club tests the spa water at least four times a day and has digital equipment installed to monitor chemical levels in the spa. Even so, after the morning or afternoon rush levels can be thrown off.
"Maintaining a hot tub or any body of water is a constant challenge due to traffic and basic hygiene," he said. "We post signs saying please shower and rinse off before using it, but you can only police things so much. We do as much as we possibly can."
Forsey and his staffers often close the hot tub at the pool to drain the water if problems are found.
McGarvey said crowded pools present the greatest risk.
"The threat on a swimming pool is you can have a lot of people in a small body of water."
---
Tribune correspondent Dana Rimington contributed to this report.
