Oh, Crap: Science Says Your Public Swim Spot Is Likely Contaminated

Are you really sure you want to go for that dip? Today, the Center for Disease Control published a study in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that included the, uh, unseemly suggestion that there should be "visible signage" at all pools that instructs patrons not to swim "when ill with diarrhea."

Why? Well, based on experiments in the metro-Atlanta area, over 58 percent of pools in the sample group tested positive for Escherichia coli, a fecal indicator. Woof.

This study, titled "Microbes in Pool Filter Backwash as Evidence of the Need for Improved Swimmer Hygiene — Metro-Atlanta, Georgia, 2012," took into account pool type (indoor or outdoor) and setting (membership municipal or waterpark), as well as the type of disinfectant used, and whether there was visible signage prohibiting unclean swimming habits. What the researchers found, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that pools just aren't very clean. Even though pool filters do remove microbial contaminants, the CDC study suggests that filters aren't regularly cleaned. Your favorite water world may in fact be a toxic, poopy wasteland.

The researchers explained that "fecal material can be introduced when it washes off of swimmers' bodies or through a formed or diarrheal fecal incident in the water." Gasp! While this is by no means groundbreaking research, the rate at which infection was found in public pools is undoubtedly discomforting. Fifty-eight percent of samples found fecal indicators, while 59 percent found Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium known for causing hot-tub rash as well as other infections.

By the end of the article, the authors do sound a bit like sanitizer-friendly middle school health teachers--and rightly so--as they note that "these findings indicate the need for swimmers to help prevent introduction of pathogens (e.g., taking a pre-swim shower and not swimming when ill with diarrhea)." They also explain that their findings cannot be generalized for the rest of pools in the US, but that the amount of "acute gastrointestinal illness through the United States suggests that swimmers frequently introduce fecal material and pathogens into recreational water throughout the country." It appears that we're a pretty dirty nation.

The unsettling data proves that swallowing a mouth full of sweet, sweet chlorine nectar can easily yield nefarious infections that would be preventable if the public's hygiene was slightly better. You won't see Motherboard at the local YMCA this summer -- we're testing our luck at Rockaway.