The Green Pool at the Olympics

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Those of you who have been following the Olympics and have been watching the swimming and diving events, have no doubt seen the green pools where diving and water polo are taking place. What? Green pools at the Olympics? The biggest world stage there is? They must have the best swimming pool professionals on earth running those pools! Well, apparently not. A green pool should never happen. What completely baffled me was the other night, when the pool operators released a statement that went something like this: "Water chemistry isn't an exact science. We underestimated the number of people that would be in the pool." WHAT? I'm a certified swimming pool operator, and I can tell you that water chemistry IS a pretty exact science. And what are they talking about saying they didn't know how many people would be in the pool? It's the Olympics! I'm not even there and I know how many people will be in that pool. Have you watched diving? There are two choices...either one diver, or two divers when they do synchronized diving. So, these pool operators didn't know that there would be two divers in the water at once? Water park managers all over the world are getting a good laugh at that excuse! Water parks have tens of thousands of people in their pools at one time, and they are pretty good about keeping their water blue! The telltale sign that these officials haven't been fully honest with the public is the fact that they haven't publicized any of the water chemistry test results. Any 10 year old kid who can read can test the pool water and analyze the results. It's really pretty simple. Folks, what they have is a chemistry problem. There are unconfirmed reports that the pH of the water spiked up close to a 9.0 (the legal range is 7.2-7.8), and the chlorine in the pool dropped to less than 1 part per million (ppm) (the legal range is 1-10ppm). If this is true--and based on the color of the water makes it seem like it is--then that would perfectly explain the green water. When the pH is too high, chlorine (even lots of it) would be rendered ineffective in the water. And if there is no chlorine in the water...well, let's just say that it makes a very conducive environment for algae to grow. There's dozens of other possible reasons for why the water is green, but everything I've seen and heard up to now point to this being a chemical problem. And by the way, once the water turns green, it does take some time and some effort to eliminate the problem. I'm thinking that by the time they get the water back to its blue color, all the diving events will be long over! By the way, officials are still saying it's safe for the athletes to swim and dive in the green water. For the most part, they are right. If there is 1 ppm of chlorine in the water, it will kill all germs but one in about 60 seconds. The one bug that's pretty resilient is cryptosporidium (or crypto for short), and you must have 10 ppm of chlorine in your pool for 24 hours in order to kill that germ. So, they may be telling the athletes that it's safe to be in that water, but I can tell you I would never let my own kids swim in there!