This is a guide that I hope you, as a pool owner and operator, never have to use. But these situations do occur and they can be costly and even dangerous if left untreated. That’s why we’re writing about it- so you can have the knowledge and preparation necessary for when that dreaded time comes that someone does, in fact, poop in your pool. Check out the steps you should take below!
It all starts with the most obvious part of the plan: get everyone out of the pool as fast as possible. While it’d be shocking if someone wants to stay in the pool after news of poop, you still need to make sure that everyone leaves the pool area. You’ll also want to close the pool until the situation is properly dealt with.
So how do you properly deal with a situation like this? Once you’ve cleared the pool of swimmers, the real work begins. You’ll want to strap on a pair of disposable gloves to make sure that you are avoiding contact with the feces directly. Once you’ve got your gloves on, grab a net or bucket and start removing the poop, being as careful as you can to not break it up.
There are two things to note about this step in the process. One is that you should definitely not use your pool vacuum to get the poop out. This will break it up and spread it around your pool, causing a bigger mess than when you started. And in the same vein, you’ll want to be much more careful when it comes to diarrhea. Poop of all kinds can be dangerous to your swimmers, but there’s a much greater chance the diarrhea will contain cryptosporidium and other bacteria that cause recreational water illnesses.
Once you’ve gotten as much of the fecal matter out of your pool as possible, dispose of it in a sanitary manner. You’ll then want to disinfect whatever item you used to remove the poop, which can be done during the pool disinfection period that we’ll go over in the next step. Once you’ve gotten rid of the poop and cleaned out your poop-removal tool, throw away your disposable gloves, wash your hands thoroughly, and it’s pool cleaning time.
The first step you want to do is raise your free chlorine concentration. The CDC recommends the concentration be right around 2 parts per million, with a pH of 7.5 or less and a temperature at 77 degrees or above. You’ll want to be at this level for about half an hour. This is also when you can submerge your sanitized poop-removal tool, which will help disinfect it even further. During this 30-minute period, you should keep your filtration system running.
One thing to note is, if the accident was diarrhea, you’ll want to raise the free chlorine concentration even higher, around 20 parts per million, for at least 13 hours to destroy cryptosporidium and other chlorine tolerant parasites. You’ll also want to replace the cartridge or backwash the filter directly to waste. You do not want to return the backwash through the filter, as this could continue to spread the germs.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you should be right on track to opening up that pool and getting swimmers back in the water. And, like I said at the beginning of this guide, I hope you never have to take these necessary precautions. But pooping the pool is more common than you may imagine and can cause your reputation to tarnish if not taken care of right away.