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Bacteria closes pool for a week

The pool at the Houston Leisure Facility closed last week because bacteria was found in the water, and reopened this past Monday.

The pool at the Houston Leisure Facility closed last week because bacteria was found in the water.

Director of Leisure Services Ryan Coltura says a regular monthly water sample sent to Northern Health tested positive for pseudomonas bacteria, so they closed the pool at 2 p.m. last week Monday, postponed swim lessons and reopened this past Monday morning.

Pseudomonas bacteria is a common bacteria that can live in soil, plants, animals and water and it can thrive if introduced to a swimming pool, said Coltura.

He adds that the bacteria is usually not harmful, except to people with lowered immune systems, and infections usually result in a skin rash or swimmers ear.

“We are trying to maintain pool water that is as healthy and safe as possible, so we need to shut down and do a thorough cleaning and send in our test results,” said Coltura early last week.

Coltura says they immediately shut down the pool when they got the bacteria-positive test result and super-chlorinated the water to treat it, sending a clean sample away Tuesday.

Then they had to wait a few days for the test results to come back saying the pool was clean.

“We do keep our water chemistry well above minimum ranges so the public shouldn’t worry that our pool water’s not clean,” said Coltura, adding that they always monitor the chemistry closely.

Coltura says this is why shoes aren’t allowed on the pool deck and why swimmers are encouraged to shower before going in the pool.

He says they don’t know how the bacteria was introduced to the pool but it could have been through a swimmer or water runoff into the pool.

“We recognize that this occurred in the pool and we are taking all the steps and showing due diligence to make sure that our pool is safe and ready before we reopen it,” said Coltura.

The pool was cleaned, new samples cleared by Northern Health and the pool is opened again for swimmers.