Personal Injury Law

How Phoenix Delivered The News That All Pools Are Closed!

"Good evening. I’m Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks.

Today we learned from Maricopa County officials that two swimmers who had used the city’s Starlight Pool have tested positive for the intestinal illness crypto-spor-i-dio-sis, commonly known as “crypto.”

We also have been made aware that 14 lifeguards and 15 visitors to Starlight Pool have been ill.

We do not know that all of these people have been ill with crypto. And the pool chemical tests have met County health standards.

The only confirmed illness of which we are aware is limited to visitors of Starlight Pool. But swimmers from Starlight may have visited other city pools and some city lifeguards from Starlight work at several different city pools.

Because so many of our swimmers are children, we want to be very cautious and safe, and go above and beyond. We are therefore closing all of the city’s 29 pools for testing and treatment.

All of the pools were closed tonight and the treatment will work as follows. Parks staff is super-chlorinating all of the pools to a level of 40 parts per million of chlorine and maintaining that level of chlorine for 40 hours. The Centers for Disease Control recommends 20 parts per million, but just to be safe, we are using 40 parts per million.

Additionally, the city’s Water Department is taking samples tonight from Starlight and nearby pools and testing them for crypto. Those test results should be known in about 48 hours.

This is a good lesson for all of us. The CDC recommends that if you have symptoms of intestinal illness, such as diarrhea, vomiting, or stomach cramps, do not go swimming – in a public pool or private pool.

Again, we believe this is an isolated incident at Starlight Pool, but the safety of the public is our top priority."

Full post as published by Cryptosporidium Blog on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).