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DROWNING IN DISINFECTION BY-PRODUCTS? SWIMMING POOL WATER QUALITY RECONSIDERED.
Citation:
ZWIENER, C., S. D. RICHARDSON, D. M. DEMARINI, T. GRUMMT, T. GLAUNER, AND F. H. FRIMMEL. DROWNING IN DISINFECTION BY-PRODUCTS? SWIMMING POOL WATER QUALITY RECONSIDERED. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Indianapolis, IN, 41(2):363-372, (2007).
Impact/Purpose:
The goals of the project were to explore aspects of pool water quality in terms of hygienic and chemical safety.
Description:
The development of treated water for swimming pools has made swimming a year ¬round activity, widely enjoyed for leisure as well as exercise. Swimming pools can be found in different kinds and sizes in public areas, hotels and spas, or at private homes. In Germany ~250-300 million people visit pools each year, averaging 3 visits per capita. In the UK, one third of the children and ~36% of adults (>15 years of age) visit swimming pools at least once a week; 55% of children (5-9 years of age) use pools at least once a month. The highest numbers of existing in-ground and above-ground pools in Europe are found in France (773,000) and Germany (625,000), followed by the UK with 155,000 and Italy with 94,000. In the U.S., the current number of existing in-ground pools is estimated at 4,210,000 units (1).
Pool water and other recreational waters are increasingly regarded as a health priority around the world. The World Health Organization (2) has identified some of the hazards associated with recreational water use, which include infections caused by feces-associated microbes, such as viruses and bacteria, as well as protozoa such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, which are resistant to chlorine and other pool disinfectants. In the U.S., the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) has recently awarded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a grant to explore such health issues (3). "There is a compelling need to get some answers on the spread of recreational water illnesses," says NSPF's Chief Executive Officer, Thomas M. Lachocki (4). In the UK, technological developments, pool water quality, and governing standards were the topics of an International Conference held in 2002 in Cranfield (5).
Beyond the engineering aspects of the pool itself, sufficient disinfection with a minimum of disinfection by-products (DBPs) is the other major issue in pool water treatment. The goal is to prevent illnesses associated with recreational water use (3) and to minimize any health impacts from excessive DBPs. Swimming pool water is a dynamic environment that changes with the climate, the number of people in the pool, activities of the swimmers, as well as environmental contaminants brought into the pool on the skin and clothes (bather load). Pool water must achieve suitable disinfection given this range of contamination while also accommodating a wide range of people: young children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, Olympic athletes, etc. This is a challenging environment in which to achieve a suitable public health outcome.
The topic of optimized disinfection and minimized DBP formation by new treatment techniques was the focus of a recent collaborative research project in Germany titled "Pool Water Chemistry and Health," which was funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium fur Bildung and Forschung BMBF) and attended by experts from academia, industry, and the German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt). Researchers evaluated pool water quality from the perspectives of chemistry, technology, and health.
The goals of the project were to explore aspects of pool water quality in terms of hygienic and chemical safety. Investigations were conducted in the fields of DBP formation, epidemiologic and toxicologic assessment of DBPs, and minimization of DBPs by new treatment technologies. Results were presented at an International Symposium on "Pool Water Chemistry and Health" in Karlsruhe, Germany in September 2003 (6). It became obvious that despite a fundamental knowledge of pool water quality and a well-developed tradition in pool water treatment, further research would help to characterize the health effects of swimming pool water.