Here's a recurring sign of the times and likely a scenario that will continue into the future. AOL Travel reporters recently made unannounced visits to five popular water parks across the US to check for the presence of bacteria in their swimming pools during regular park hours. The results were both a direct reflection on the operators within each of the parks and the water quality standards by which they maintain their facilities, and the industry as a whole.
More later on advocacy for the swimmers' health with some thoughts on how operators might get a leg up on this developing standard of care. In the mean time, check out What's Living in Your Water Park? and don't forget to take the reader's poll at the bottom.
Congrats to SureWater customers Raging Waters San Dimas and Wet 'N Wild Orlando as well as all of the parks and operators involved in this study. You make us all proud!
Be Sure!
Showing posts with label Healthy Swimming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healthy Swimming. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
A Chloramine Prevention Precursor:
Are You "Practicing" Healthy Swimming at Your Pool?
I am a believer in the benefits of social media and find it in its' various forms to be an increasingly invaluable tool to me in business. I have maintained a company page that many of you are aware of at twitter.com/sureh2o for some time now. Through that site I follow a number of other sites ("Tweeps"), some news related, some business and of course some related to swimming. It has been interesting to follow some well known swimmers like @daratorresswims, @NatalieCoughlin, @G_WeberGale, and @goldmedalmel (Mel Stewart)
, all of whom are past or current US Olympic Swim Team members and gold medal winners. Recently, I spotted a post on Mel Stewart's Twitter page (twitter.com/goldmedalmel) linked to a post on his blog entitled Chlorine and Pee Can Kill You, which got my attention. After reading his post and the referenced article, KEY Health Facts You Need to Know if You Have or Use a Pool, and a follow up post that provides the unique perspective of a competitive swimmers' urination on the "fly" experiences, Peeing in the Pool (with Video), I felt compelled to post a comment in reply.
I have commented on many articles in the past, but none with the response that my comments received from Mel Stewart. He received them with open arms, posting them verbatim in a follow up post on his blog (see my comments @ Chlorine and Urine can Kill, Part II). Mel didn't stop there. In the interest of his readers' personal knowledge and health, he invited me to write up a list of steps that can be employed at their facilities to help prevent the formation of chloramines to be included on his blog as a "guest post". The link for this post, what I called a "Chloramine Prevention Precursor", was posted on his blog in full at Chlorine and Human Secretions, THE FACTS. Take a quick look! You are probably already incorporating many, if not all of these steps into your operation, but how far are we going as Operators to cooperatively establish workable prevention protocol with the competitive groups that are using our facilities. Here's where relationship plays a vital role in assuring the "best practices" are not just in place, but are being PRACTICED. On behalf of Mel Stewart, I would encourage you to share his posts with your swim, water polo, synchro and other team coaches and parents in a cooperative effort to provide the healthiest environment possible for the participants and staff of your facility.
I want to publicly thank Mel for his commitment to swimmers and to healthful swimming by shedding light on the issue of chloramines and for presenting the opportunity for me to link the Pool Operator community with the Competitive Swimming world in an effort to inform and ensure the "practice" of healthy swimming in all of our facilities. Be Sure!
, all of whom are past or current US Olympic Swim Team members and gold medal winners. Recently, I spotted a post on Mel Stewart's Twitter page (twitter.com/goldmedalmel) linked to a post on his blog entitled Chlorine and Pee Can Kill You, which got my attention. After reading his post and the referenced article, KEY Health Facts You Need to Know if You Have or Use a Pool, and a follow up post that provides the unique perspective of a competitive swimmers' urination on the "fly" experiences, Peeing in the Pool (with Video), I felt compelled to post a comment in reply. I have commented on many articles in the past, but none with the response that my comments received from Mel Stewart. He received them with open arms, posting them verbatim in a follow up post on his blog (see my comments @ Chlorine and Urine can Kill, Part II). Mel didn't stop there. In the interest of his readers' personal knowledge and health, he invited me to write up a list of steps that can be employed at their facilities to help prevent the formation of chloramines to be included on his blog as a "guest post". The link for this post, what I called a "Chloramine Prevention Precursor", was posted on his blog in full at Chlorine and Human Secretions, THE FACTS. Take a quick look! You are probably already incorporating many, if not all of these steps into your operation, but how far are we going as Operators to cooperatively establish workable prevention protocol with the competitive groups that are using our facilities. Here's where relationship plays a vital role in assuring the "best practices" are not just in place, but are being PRACTICED. On behalf of Mel Stewart, I would encourage you to share his posts with your swim, water polo, synchro and other team coaches and parents in a cooperative effort to provide the healthiest environment possible for the participants and staff of your facility.
I want to publicly thank Mel for his commitment to swimmers and to healthful swimming by shedding light on the issue of chloramines and for presenting the opportunity for me to link the Pool Operator community with the Competitive Swimming world in an effort to inform and ensure the "practice" of healthy swimming in all of our facilities. Be Sure!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Oh No, Crypto!
"With a Purposeful Grimace and a Terrible Sound
He Pulls the Spitting High Tension Wires Down
Helpless People On a Subway Train
Scream Bug-eyed As He Looks in On Them
He Picks Up a House and He Throws It Back Down
As He Wades Through the Buildings Toward the Center of Town
Oh No, They Say He's Got to Go, Go Go Godzilla
Oh No, There Goes Tokyo, Go Go Go Crypto"
The whimsical lyrics to Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla" spring immediately to mind as I read on and on about the dreaded Cryptosporidium! These lyrics take on a somewhat profound yet intentionally humorous meaning as the words "Go Crypto" are substituted for "Godzilla".
Regrettably, crypto is no laughing matter. In fact, it is a very real and menacing "intruder" when it finds it's way into our drinking or recreational waters. It wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting intestinal system in much the same way Godzilla did (on film) in the streets of Tokyo. And like Godzilla, crypto is tough to kill. As a result, practitioners within our industry have found themselves in a precarious situation, grasping for an effective weapon to eliminate this foe. The notorious "creature" is loose in the "streets" of our swimming pools and as the minister of defense we've got to decide if, and/or when to call out the heavy artillery.
Just when it seemed that Godzilla would bring utter and complete devastation, the inhabitants of Tokyo would turn up the defensive heat, driving him back into the sea from which he came. We can, and must do the same thing with Crypto. That is, turn up the "heat"! In our case, the "heat" is ORP. Yes, Oxidation Reduction Potential, or qualitative kill power. True heavy artillery in the on-going pathogen battle!
Crypto is a formidable opponent, but it is not the nearly indestructible "monster" it is portrayed as by some. There is well documented scholarly research giving evidence to the fact that it is readily and fully deactivated in as little as 30 to 120 minutes when exposed to a sustained ORP level of 800 to 865 mV. Kent Williams, Executive Director of the PPOA has long been hailing us with this fact from his "soap box", the Pumproom Press (please see PrP Issue 4, Fecal Water Balance: It Happens Every Day; PrP Extra Summer 1998, The Dreaded E. Coli bacterium; PrP Issue 6, Tech Talk: Crypto Update; PrP, Crypto Makes the News Again!).
When you're making a choice from the available water treatment arsenal, which would you rather; a weapon of mass destruction with a timely result, or a "fixed" weapon which kills only passers-by one at the time? I'm talkin' 30 minutes to 2 hours Contact Time (CT) with a system that is capable of delivering continuous ORP elevation (i.e. high capacity venturi feed) as opposed to 6 to 24 hours with "outboard" treatment systems (i.e. Ozone, UV). It's all good, but those of you with "The Solution" know what I mean!
"Godzilla's" lyrics repetitively finish...
"History Shows Again and AgainFolly can be defined as a costly and foolish undertaking; an unwise investment or expenditure. Let's not let history prove nature right with this sobering indictment! We're not looking down the barrel at Godzilla here, right?!
How Nature Points Out the Folly of Men"
(Click on title at top for BOC's Godzilla Live!)
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