Don't blame the Times--it's reporters and media in general. Articles like this make me crazy, because after all these years, I KNOW that a chlorine pool, properly maintained, is the cleanest, safest pool you can have. I KNOW that if you smell chlorine or are irritated by it, you have improper maintanence and need MORE chlorine. I frequently am running an FC of 7 or 8 with a CYA of 40 and there is NO chlorine smell--because MY pool is clean.

The idea the chlorine is "unnatural" is nuts. Part of what keeps the oceans clean is the chlorine ions from the dissolved salt in it.

Besides, a pond is "natural"--with fish, frogs, slimy algae, weeds, mosquito larvae...and typhoid, typhus, and hepatitis if someone or something defecates in it.

It is PRECISELY against those dangerous and deadly diseases that we work to keep our pools "unnaturally" sanitary. And safe.