Linn County environmental health specialist Kayla Sweeney checks that a ladder is secure at Bender Pool in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday, April 11, 2012, during a routine yearly inspection. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)
One in five Linn and Johnson County swim facilities has been forced to close in the past two years because of health and safety violations, according to a Gazette review of hundreds of inspections for public and private pools.
Hotels own about one-third of the licensed pools and hot tubs in Linn County but had 80 percent of closures forced by health officials for reasons that included positive bacteria tests and dangerous chemical levels. In Johnson County, hotels have about 40 percent of the pools and two-thirds of the closures.
Pool inspections reveal some alarming details, such as soccer tournament guests who developed rashes and ear infections after swimming in a Cedar Rapids hotel pool and an Iowa City retirement community with repeated problems with bacteria in the hot tub.
None of this information is available online, so swimmers are less likely to know what they’re jumping into.
“You wouldn’t stay in a hotel room without a smoke detector,” said Heidi Peck, environmental health services branch manager for the Linn County Public Health Department. “The public should be able to look at the (pool) inspection reports and make that decision themselves.”
Bad chemistry most common closure cause
Linn County environmental health specialist Kayla Sweeney checks the ultraviolet lights that help sanitize the water at Bender Pool in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday, April 11, 2012. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)
Of Linn County’s 116 pool licenses, 24 have been forced to close on inspection since July 1, 2010, because of a serious violation. Johnson County health inspectors closed 15 of 78 licensed pools and hot tubs since July 1, 2010.
The majority of the closures in both counties were because of improper levels of disinfectant, such as chlorine, or a pH imbalance, which can reduce the effectiveness of chlorine. Chlorine and other disinfectants kill bacteria and parasites that can cause gastrointestinal diseases like norovirus, giardiasis and cryptosporidiosis, as well as rashes and ear infections.
Most swimming pools, hot tubs, wading pools and water slides are required to be licensed in Iowa. Excluded are residential pools and hot tubs, pools overseen by medical personnel and pools owned by homeowners’ groups that assume liability.
Licensed pools and hot tubs have one surprise inspection a year. Inspectors check water chemistry, records, maintenance of the pool structure and emergency procedures. If there are serious violations, inspectors shut down the pool or hot tub until staff can fix the problem.
Problem pools
Two Cedar Rapids hotels had more forced closures than other swimming facilities in Linn and Johnson counties.
The Clarion Hotel & Convention Center, 525 33rd Ave. SW, has had six forced closures of its pool or hot tub since July 1, 2010. All of these closures followed positive tests for pathogens, including E. coli and fecal coliform.
Pool staff members are required to hyperchlorinate, or boost chlorine levels dramatically, before reopening after a positive bacteria test.
Clarion management did not return several calls for comment about the pool’s closure record.
The Quality Inn, 4747 First Ave. SE, has been required to close its pool or hot tub seven times since July 1, 2010 — with four closures because of lack of chlorine.
“You have some good ones, and you have some not-so-good ones,” Peck said about Linn County pools.
Five, six or seven closures in less than two years? “I would say that’s significant,” she said.
Health inspectors closed the Quality Inn hot tub on Nov. 5, 2010, because the water had no chlorine. The pool was closed at the same time because the pH was too high.
Pool operators are required by law to have 12 months of records for inspectors to review, but the Quality Inn had none.
Hotel staff said drunken guests had stolen the records. “We looked for the pool book all over the hotel, including in the trash and Dumpster and in the guest room, but to no avail,” Assistant General Manager Andrew Garrett wrote in a Nov. 5, 2010, letter to the health department.
Five Quality Inn employees signed a Nov. 23, 2010, letter promising to “teach each and every staff member how to test the pool and spa for chlorine disinfectant and pH, every 2 hours on the spa and every 4 hours on the pool.”
Yet, a year later, on Nov. 7, 2011, inspectors again closed the Quality Inn pool after finding no chlorine or other disinfectants. The spa, which was only half-full at the time and had “excessive amounts of sand,” also was closed.
In April 2008, Linn County Public Health received a complaint that boys staying at the Quality Inn for a soccer tournament developed ear and skin infections after swimming in the pool. Inspectors closed the pool, because it had no disinfectant, records state.
Quality Inn owner Sabeena Rizvi said pool closures in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 were because of two bad managers, who stole from the hotel and lied to the owners about operations.
“We’re a small mom-and-pop business,” said Rizvi, of Rosemount, Minn. She and her husband, Sal, own three hotels, two of them in Iowa. “We rely on our management team to make sure they are handling things according to protocol.”
However, a Linn County inspector sent Rizvi an email on Feb. 11, 2009, with two years’ worth of inspection reports, a list showing what paperwork is required at inspections and an offer to answer any questions Rizvi might have.
Since last fall, Sal Rizvi has been visiting the Quality Inn and their other hotels once a week, Sabeena Rizvi said. They have spent more than $5,000 fixing and upgrading the Quality Inn pool and have written more stringent rules that she hopes will mean no more pool closures. The hotel’s most recent temporary closure, in January, was for late payment of inspection fees.
“My prediction is we should have absolutely no violations,” Rizvi said of the 2012 inspection. “We’re not going to drop the ball on this ever again.”
The Clarion Highlander in Iowa City was required to close its pool or hot tub three times in 2010 and 2011, according to inspection reports.
On Feb. 28, 2011, the Johnson County Public Health Department received a complaint that eight children developed chlorine burns on their bodies after swimming in the Highlander pool. Inspector James Lacina tested the hotel’s pool and hot tub on that day and found they had too much chlorine. He reported his arm had a slight burning sensation where it touched the pool water, and the spa’s chlorine was too high for the test to read.
A re-inspection March 24, 2011, showed the Highlander’s pool and hot tub had no chlorine. In neither visit did the hotel management have operational records for the inspector to review.
Linn County environmental health specialist Kayla Sweeney looks through the logs of daily tests of water quality at Bender Pool in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 . (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)
Poor record-keeping is a common violation for pools in Linn and Johnson counties. It usually won’t shut down a pool but can create a situation in which pool managers don’t know if their water is safe for swimmers.
Linn County inspectors found several cases in the past two years in which pool staff seemed to be fabricating records.
At the Clarion Hotel in Cedar Rapids, an inspector noted during a noon inspection on Oct. 28, 2011, that the water test information already had been entered into the log through midnight, indicating pool staff was not actually doing the water tests every four hours as required.
A Nov. 22, 2011, inspection report fort Country Inn and Suites, 9100 Atlantic Dr. SW in Cedar Rapids, read: “Total alkalinity and combined chlorine results have been almost identical since August. … It appears test results are being recorded but not necessarily done.”
There is no record of action having been taken over the suspected fabricated documents.
Hotel pools closed more than public pools
Hotels had the second-highest rate of forced closures in a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of 121,020 inspection records from agencies across the country, hotel pools accounted for 15.3 percent of health department closures in 2008, according to the survey released in May 2010.
Day-care center pools, with a closure rate of 17.2 percent, were the only group with a higher rate of closures.
“We find a lot fewer problems at the large public pools,” said Lacina, a Johnson County environmental health specialist who inspects pools.
Unlike public pools with aquatics directors, many hotel owners rely on a manager or custodian to maintain the pool and hot tub, Lacina said. However, all pool license holders are required to have a certified pool operator at all times.
Pools are desired amenities for hotel guests, but they are expensive to operate, said Craig Walter, executive vice president for the Iowa Lodging Association. However, “if it’s available and open to guests, it should be of the highest caliber,” he said.
State lax on pool reporting
Forced closures are one of the ways the public can track a pool’s safety, but the state Public Health Department doesn’t know how many closures occur statewide.
The state contracts with 52 agencies to inspect pools in 97 counties, said Carmily Stone, chief of the state’s bureau of environmental health services. Submitting an annual report that includes the number of forced closures is a requirement of the state contract, yet at least nine of the agencies failed to turn in reports or submitted incomplete reports for fiscal 2011.
“I know there are counties that have not submitted a satisfactory report, but due to resources, such as time, I have not been able to follow up with them,” Stone said in a March 9 email.
The state asked inspecting agencies to use a standardized report last year for the first time, Stone said.
Restaurant inspections have been online statewide since 2005, when the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals created its Informed Dining searchable database. Every restaurant, grocery store, convenience store and hotel is included — allowing people to check out a business’s food safety record before visiting.
Linn County started posting its restaurant inspections online four years before the state database.
“The public should know more,” Peck said.
This summer, for the first time, Linn County inspectors will take laptops to pool inspections and enter the information electronically. That data can then be pulled together for regular reports or posted online by the inspectors themselves, Peck said.
Cheryl Wroblewski of North Liberty believes posting pool inspections online would help families decide whether to visit a particular pool after a forced closure or a positive bacteria test.
“If your son or daughter is immuno-compromised at a certain time, you may not want to take them to the pool that day,” said Wroblewski, before swimming at the North Liberty Aquatic Center recently with her 2-year-old son, Sami.
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Documents: Health department closures of pools and hot tubs in Linn, Johnson counties
