knighton

Putting the P in Public Pool

Jun 9, 2009

If you enjoy going to the community pool with your family, you may not want to read this.

I read it. And I may not ever swim in a public pool again. Some juicy excerpts:

In a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted in April and May, 17 percent admitted relieving themselves in a swimming pool.

Sometimes, an indoor swimming pool will emit a strong chemical smell. The swimmers have coughs or red, stinging eyes after emerging from the pool. Usually those symptoms get dismissed as the effects of chlorine, but their causes are something more organic.

When swimmers sweat or urinate in the pool water, the bodily fluids combine with the chlorine. It creates chloramines, which causes the strange odor and the eye and respiratory irritations for swimmers, according to the CDC.