Anyone looking to take a dip at Seymour High School should think again: The pool is closed.
The wrong product was accidentally poured into the pool’s chlorine delivery system last month, and it’s taken several weeks to get the situation cleaned up.
The Mix-Up
It started with an incorrectly labeled bottle.
Officials believe an oil-based liquid product was stored in empty chlorine bottles, and then those bottles were kept unfortunately close to the actual chlorine bottles.
The maintenance personnel who poured the wrong liquid into the pool were probably unaware the bottles contained something other than chlorine, according to Richard Belden, the assistant superintendent of finance and operations.
“We had a retirement and we suspect while the retiree knew they were there, the new person did not,” Belden said.
While explaining the situation to the Board of Education at the request of member James Garofolo, Belden noted two more bottles containing the oil-based compound were discovered near the real chlorine containers.
The incident was discovered on Dec. 28, and the pool likely won’t be reopened until at least the end of the week.
“We had a number of things that had to take place to get it cleaned,” said Belden.
Clean Up
The glistening oily sheen wasn’t easy to properly clean – and it first required approval from the water authority and the Department of Environmental Protection.
Cleaning the pool required skimming the oil and discharging all of the water from the pool. A degreaser had to be run through the system to clear the pipes and the sand in the filtration unit needed to be replaced.
And that is just the beginning.
“Once we had the water out we ‘took the bricks off’ and had a look at the pipes,” said Belden.
The maintenance check revealed a few of the pipes were cracked. With no water in the pool placing pressure on them, ground water had flowed back in.
Belden said they ended up with a couple of inches of back-flowed groundwater in the pool.
Refilling the pool keeps enough pressure in the pipes to prevent further groundwater infiltration for now, but some of the pool’s water will likely leak out.
The accident will likely cost in the range of $25,000 to $30,000 Belden said.
Next Steps
Once the budget is approved the pool will be drained again over the summer and the pipes addressed.
The pool will also be repainted and sealed.
Included in the plan to improve the pool is a new chlorine system that will hold a larger amount of the chemical and will be filled by a tanker truck much like home heating oil. The system would eliminate the possibility of another accident of this type.
While the pool is now scrubbed, refilled and chemically shocked into a sanitized state, there is still one major obstacle left to reopening it.
“As of yesterday the water temperature was still 65 degrees, which is a little cold,” said Belden.
As part of their three year forecast in the budget, Belden said a plan is in place to use the school’s boiler system to heat the pool which would be more efficient.
“Those boilers are on pretty much year round,” he said.
The plan to fix the pipes and install the new chemical dispensing system are included in the forecast with the boiler heating system.
Belden said they anticipate the water temperature to be high enough to reopen the pool later this week.
The pool is used by the Seymour High School swim teams, the Seymour Wildcats Swim Club and for various recreation department programs.
