Lake Highlands North among pool-safety violators

We've visited and revisited the problems —specifically related to Lake Highlands — involving the water-borne parasite cryptosporidium in public pools. Many neighbors have been personally affected and are glad to hear updates and let others know the risks, while others have accused "the media" (myself included, I can only assume) of just giving the issue a lot of undeserved hype. This story that ran on NBC 5 evidences that we (at least I, in my relatively small amount of attention to subject) did not overreact. Apparently about 80 percent of Dallas' public pools failed the inspections sparked by the crypto scare. Several pools did not even have chlorine AT ALL. Yuck.

In the story, Lake Highlands North pool was cited as one of the pools with many common safety violations. LHN was in the news last week because a child reportedly caught the crypto virus there.

Comments

[Triple Wildcat]

You know, there's probably been crypto and other bad stuff in our public pools and spray parks for years, it's just that this year somehow a connection was made.

And yeah, it's "just" diarrhea and vomiting, but that's no fun. And it's really no one fun to deal with it in a toddler. I'd rather get sick myself than see my child suffer. On top of all that, one toddler's death has been linked (although not 100 percent proven) to crypto. That makes it serious enough to warrant thorough inspections of pools and spray parks.

But I don't think there's a real hysteria about crypto. People aren't running out of their houses screaming. But they are being smarter about using public pools and spray parks. Yes, the media is covering the heck out of this story, but that doesn't translate into people being overly worried. "Cautious" is probably a better way to describe it.

If the public pools do a better job of cleaning their water, and parents and others do a better job of keeping things sanitary, then all this so-called hype and hysteria is worth it. And if it's proven that crypto caught from a public pool did kill that toddler, then no amount of media hype is enough. The crypto illnesses aren't random events like traffic accidents. Although the odds are still slim of anyone catching crypto, it's a correctable problem.

[Swimmer]

Triple, I agree with you. I also suspect the operators of the public pools have been a little lax in enforcing hygienic policies and in keeping the pool chemistry within the minimum health code requirements. Health inspectors are stretched thin and don't get to visit the pools too frequently to insure compliance. I hope the pool operators will train their employees properly. I find it truly sad when the City has to post on its website the proper procedures for dealing with an "incident" such as someone eliminating in the pool. The guards and managers should know this already and already be complying with it. Obviously there is no one to do this in the spray parks though. Hopefully we won't have to go back to the days of requiring showers before entering pools and women being required to wear those oh so fashionable "bathing caps", but a little more responsibility on the part of pool visitors and parents of smaller children would go a long way. Maybe it's time the Health Dept require hyper-chlorination at least one to two weeks during the summer season to keep this from rearing it's ugly head in the future, even if it means closing the pool one day a week to do this.