Montreal closes two-thirds of outdoor pools for failing tests...

[JohnT]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/cp_x082104A.xml.html

The more I learn about pools, the less appealing public swimming pools seem.

[Spensar]

If you read French, there is a bit more at http://www.canoe.com/infos/dossier_piscine/index.html

English link too: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060821/montreal_pool_060821/20060821?hub=Canada

An online translator does the usual crude job, but one thing of interest is that there were "..three samples taken in July and in August and analyzed in private laboratory, for each of the 73 public swimming pools on the Island of Montreal..."

Quebec got hammered earlier this summer for its lack of rules and enforcement for waterparks after a boy lost his legs. Other provinces have much stricter standards and enforecement. I have to wonder if that applies to pools as well, even those these are public, government run pools.

[RavenNS]

sorry to thread-jack, but if anyone wanted to read the water-park accident story, here it is:
( I will seriously be looking at water-park safety hazards from now on)

Tue Jul 11, 3:50 PM

A seven-year-old boy seriously injured in a swimming pool accident at a Quebec water park has lost both legs below the knee.


One of the boy's legs was severed Monday when he got caught in an intake pipe at the bottom of the pool. The other leg was amputated in hospital.


Alexis Auclair had been playing in the pool at the water park in Saint-Pie, about 50 kilometres east of Montreal.


"He was sucked up in the tube," said witness Frederik Chrétien, an employee at Le Camping des Glissades d'eau St-Pie.


"When he got out, he was missing a foot, and the other was attached by just a little skin," said Chrétien.


Auclair's heart had stopped when he was pulled from the water by a lifeguard and another patron, but his vital signs returned when he was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.


He was rushed to Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal where doctors amputated his legs below the knee because they were not able to save either foot, according to a hospital spokeswoman.


Auclair will be given prosthetic feet.


"He should be able to walk by the end of the summer, and to be back to school," doctors told reporters Tuesday afternoon.


"He will have to learn to walk again."


Water park co-owner Denis Arcand said a lifeguard had warned swimmers they were getting too close to the intake pipe, which is about 30 centimetres in diameter, just before the boy was trapped.


When he saw that the boy was caught, the lifeguard turned off the pump that draws water into the pipe.


Quebec provincial police spokesman Claude Denis said an investigation is underway to determine whether protective screens were in place on the pipe and, if not, at what point they came off.


The park has been closed for an indefinite period of time

[Spensar]

Bit more detail as more news sources pick it.

Toronto Star:

One-third of the pools tests failed the tests, while another third didn't meet accepted standards. In addition to ordering tests on all 73 pools, Tremblay said the city will conduct tests on 80 of its wading pools used by babies that weren't included in the new study.

[RavenNS]

OMG, I can only imagine what they'll find growing in the wadding pools :eek:

[Spensar]

Bit more info from Yahoo news. The comments from the Vancouver official are verry interesting, he must lurk here!


...One-third of the pools failed tests conducted by BioMedco, a private firm hired by the media outlets. Another third of the pools had samples that failed to meet accepted standards.

Three samples were taken from each pool between July 8 and Aug. 1.

In all, some 4,560 samples were evaluated.

-- snip --

The city's health department said it has received no information that anyone has become ill as a result of the water quality.

But people don't always make a connection between swimming in a pool and ailments such as skin irritations and diarrhea, said Dr. John Carsley, head of the public health department.

The tests suggested that in some pools, coliform contamination was four times provincial norms.

"The issue is this is an index of risk and the higher the bacterial contamination, the more likely it is that something will happen," Carsley said.

He said he's not sure if it has ever been studied whether it's possible to get C. difficile from swimming pools.

Unlike other provinces, pool safety falls under the Quebec's Environment Department rather than local public health departments.

Carsley said the city acted properly by closing the pools until further tests are conducted.

Chlorine is added as a disinfectant after city lifeguards conduct poolside tests every two to three hours.

But too much can also cause health problems.

One of the pools used for last summer's world aquatics championships actually had too much chlorine, concluded the media tests.

The right mix of chlorine is sufficient to kill most bacteria, said Janka Corewyn, acting supervisor beaches and outdoor pools in Vancouver.

"We feel that any organic matter which would be the cause for health concerns that is definitely dealt with the chlorine," she said.

The City of Vancouver ensures the safety of its 15 indoor and outdoor pools by keeping chlorine levels at 2.5 parts per million. British Columbia regulations require at least one part per million.

"As soon as we see it going below that 2.5 parts per million, we're definitely acting on it."

In Toronto, public health inspectors conduct at least four examinations per year of every public pool, and two inspections of summer facilities. The inspections are designed to prevent drownings as well as chemical chemical shortcomings.

"Water contamination that can affect human health is a serious concern for us," said Reg Ayre, manager of Toronto Public Health.

Pool operators frequently complain that inspectors are too strict, he said.

"But we would rather do that than have a major outbreak or have to answer to an inquest when something goes wrong," he said.

"E. coli is a marker for fecal contamination and if you are starting see bacterial contamination, you've then got to start asking the question what is the pool chemistry like."

The mayor of Montreal's LaSalle borough, where the some of the city's worst results were found, announced a series of steps Monday to ensure the situation is corrected before next weekend.

Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard said he will ask department officials to add water quality to the recommendations he has asked for regarding the safety of public pools.

[giroup01]

Yup, two thirds of the pools have been closed. Look closely at the test results from the inept private lab and you'll find that at some pool they found total chlorine lower than free chlorine (!) and they didn't bother checking total chlorine if free chlorine was greater than 1.2 ppm. They also came up with their own range for total chlorine... "presence". Hence we must find total chlorine. As long as we find some... Then there's the category of "chlorine odor", entirely subjective, when there is no chlorine odor you got 5 points, a moderate odor got you 10 and a strong odor got you 0 points. Verrrry scientific. The lab did not check ORP levels nor did they check stabilizer levels. They also used the outdated and incorrect chlorine range of "0.6 -1.2" ppm, so any pools not within this range got closed. Hence the pool near my sister's place, with a chlorine level of 2.6 ppm (with a bather load of 60) got shut down.

The newspaper that carried this "exclusivity" also has its share of ineptitude, the reporter for example states that a lower pH chlorine is less efficient and my favorite, "sweat and dandruff accumulate and combine with the sodium hypochlorite contained in the chlorine to produce chloramines." Ah yes.

All in all an inept study reported by a bunch of inept reporters who just can't explain things properly.

Then we get our minister of health announcing tough new measures, yes that's right, starting next year pool operators will have to check water every *three* hours, compared this to Ontario where they have to check water every two hours at the most. They may even allow an upper chlorine range of 3 ppm!

The root of the problem is twofold, proper training for pool operators (the task of pool operation is currently given to part-time lifeguards) and new standards for pool water chemistry.

Anyhow this entire pool thing combined with the ineptitude of the lab and reporters just makes me want to go into hiding.

Or move to Ontario.


Paul
Montreal, Canada

Disclosure: I own a small pool service company north of Montreal serving the residential market, I sell test kits, accessories and chemicals.

[Spensar]

Thanks for the update Paul. I'm in Ottawa but haven't seen a good link with more than general information. The reports make it sound like the lab knows what it's talking about. I wondered about the reference to chlorine levels being "too high". Hard to imagine in a public pool where you have to monitor by the hour to keep levels up that too high a level is a long term issue.

[medvampire]

Here is a link to google news. It will give you up to date stories on the pool closing.
google news (http://news.google.com/news?tab=wn&ned=us&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=montreal+swimming)
Steve

[giroup01]

The reports make it sound like the lab knows what it's talking about.
I just downloaded the pdf of the complete report (in French). They tested the pH with a temperature-compensated Hanna probe, the alcalinity with sulfuric acid titration and the same pH meter (one assumes) and get this, the chlorine was tested DPD (not FAS but colorimetric) with a HACH kit! I wonder how they got that much precision out of DPD. Oh, and the report suggests that FAC be twice the amount of CC.

I wrote an email to the lab asking them, among other things, if they had tested CYA and ORP.

No reply yet.

:confused: