Management at Olds' Aquatic Centre is getting a little fed up of finding stool in the pool.
Between May 10 and 30, the pool at the centre was closed five times after fecal matter was discovered in the water and three of those closures involved shutting the pool down for 24 hours due to diarrhea in the pool.
“This is crazy,” said Helen Windeler, the centre's aquatic coordinator, when asked how unusual these types of incidents are at the pool.
When the centre experiences a “loose stool” incident such as the discovery of diarrhea in the pool, she said, the centre must follow Alberta Health protocol and close for 24 hours so staff can clean the water with high levels of chlorine and sanitize anything that was in contact with the water.
Windeler said such closures were required on May 10, 14 and 24, while the pool was also closed for up to two hours on May 28 and 30 for smaller incidents involving fecal matter in the pool.
As for who might be responsible for polluting the pool, Windeler said she was at a loss.
“At this point, I can't even pinpoint it at a certain population that this is happening (to),” she said. “It seems to be a broad spectrum from kids to adults.
“Whether it's a flu that's going on right now or something. I'm not sure.”
She added, however, it's a major disruption to the centre's operations any time the pool is closed over such an incident.
When centre lifeguards see fecal matter in the pool, they immediate ask patrons to leave the water and encourage them to take a shower, Windeler said.
How much chlorine is added to the pool depends on the severity of contamination and lifeguards will remove any fecal matter in the water, store the matter in a biohazard bag and then, after 24 hours, put it in the garbage.
Windeler said the centre also immediately informs the town of the contamination and if a 24-hour closure is necessary, the centre lets the health inspector know about the incident.
Although she doesn't know how much such closures cost the centre in lost revenue from cancelled swimming lessons, birthday parties, public swimming time and exercise classes or extra pay for cleaning duties, Windeler said decontamination duties take a great deal of time and require up to four people.
And, she said, someone needs to monitor chlorine levels, even during off hours.
“It's a huge disruption in service. And if it turns out the person who may have had the accident ends up going into the hot tub too, then we need to take care of the main pool and also super-chlorinate the hot tub as well,” Windeler said. “And there could be an occasion where we just dump that, the hot tub, because it's a smaller body of water. It really does depend on the severity of the situation.”
So far, Windeler said no one has approached her to say they will no longer use the centre due to the fecal matter-related closures, but people are complaining.
“I think they're puzzled and it's frustrating, from the feedback that I get. And they kind of wonder why does this happen at Olds Aquatic Centre when it doesn't happen at… all these other places.”
Prior to May 10, Windeler said the centre has only experienced two or three closures due to fecal matter in the pool since the beginning of the year and May was the worst month for such incidents since 2011.
“Two summers ago we had a lot of fecal incidents but they weren't major closures,” she said. “We'll go for a long period of time with nothing, and then we'll get boom, boom, boom, boom.”
The centre is now posting signage Windeler hopes will help discourage further closures by asking people not to swim if they're sick.
“Please, if you're not feeling well or haven't felt well in a while, choose a different activity.”
