Swimming poo(l)

Today I found out what happens when poo (officially “fecal matter”) is found in a public swimming pool.

They close the pool.

This makes sense, of course. Who wants to swim with poo? After the poo is fished out, the staff must conduct a sweep of the pool using their poo-meters or whatnot to make sure the water is fit for swimming. Thid can take awhile as public pools tend to be large.

This happened at the Canada Games Pool, and while it didn’t inconvenience me–I was there to use an elliptical trainer–the closure of both the main pool and the large kids pool meant that anyone who wanted to get wet had to:

  • use the swirl pool, which is not really the same thing
  • sit in the sauna and sweat profusely, which is definitely not the same thing
  • make do in the very small kiddie pool, which is really just a shallow wading pool

The swirl pool and kiddie pool were both more crowded than I’ve ever seen them. I felt bad for everyone. And sweaty. Because of the elliptical.

I started thinking about why or how someone would poo in a public pool and then stopped. I think I made the right choice.

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