The Science and Standards Behind Safer Pools

Welcome to another episode of Pool People. Today, I'm here with Dewey Case. Dewey is the aquatics coordinator for the Williamson County Parks and Recreation, and is the technical director of the Council for Model Aquatic Health Code. I'm talking to him here today because he teaches or is involved with CPO courses, but we're going to talk about a range of topics about his career in pools today. Dewey, welcome. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about what you do

currently and what your responsibilities are at the moment. Yeah. It's interesting. I serve a dual role. My primary role, my full-time job, is the aquatics coordinator for Williamson County Parks and Rec here in Tennessee where we have five different rec centers with aquatic facilities, aquatic venues, four outdoor pools, two six-lane short course pools, one big 50-meter, one pretty substantial splash pad, and then one medium-sized splash pad.

In my role, I work under my aquatic superintendent where we just lead the county. I do a lot of quality assurance work. I do a lot of focusing on trainings and trying to set some universal standards across all of our facilities, work with audits, work with staff development, and those type things. My superintendent is a great guy. I love working with him. I joke that I'm in middle management, so I don't have to worry about opening

the pool at five in the morning, and I don't have to do budget defense with the park and rec director. So it's a nice spot to be. In my other role, I serve as technical director for CMAHC, the Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code, where I work directly with the CDC to help maintain the MAHC, revise the MAHC, update it. I also provide technical assistance across both the aquatic sectors and public health. Do a lot of training, a lot of leading, a lot of guidance, and working with an amazing set of volunteers

from the commercial aquatic sector and public health and industry, general industry, to move this needle, right? On this thing we call public health and aquatics and aquatic safety and aquatic operations. What are the needles you're trying to move? Ah, you know, that's a good question. A lot of it, Parker, honestly, is getting more knowledge, right? Getting more knowledge out there and raising the bar, raising standards, right? So things like getting better operator training, right?

Getting more information about disinfection, more information about how do we build pools, right? More information about how do we protect bathers in our commercial facilities, from pathogens, both cryptosporidium, E. coli, Naegleria fowleri, right? And a variety of other pathogens, Pseudomonas, legionella, whole nine yards, right? So, and that's kinda it, right? So in moving this needle to have safer pools, healthier pools, moving the needle to have pools

that are, you know, when they're life guarded, to have them the safest, the well-managed, well-thought-out pools they can be. And advancing standards, right? So things like requiring automatic controllers on commercial pools, things like looking at our high-risk venues, like splash pads, and requiring secondary disinfection systems, right? Things like, we just released, CMAHC did, cold plunge guidance, right? First ever publicly available cold plunge guidance.

So things like that, that's what we mean by moving the needle. Yeah. Okay, great. And what are the, so that's your work with CMAHC and the needle you're moving there. You talk about being kind of in middle management in terms of your work as the aquatics coordinator, for better or for worse. It sounds like for better is how you think about it. What are- I'm doing the heck out of it, that's for sure. What are the sort of folks that you have reporting to you and the sort of responsibilities that they have and what does that look like? Sure, well, we've got, in our structure,

our current aquatic staff is about 230. This includes splash pad attendants. This includes our frontline lifeguards or lifeguard supervisors, our aquatic managers at facilities, or in our pool tech, our pool technician. And it includes myself and my superintendent. So it's, yeah, it's kind of an interesting show, right? Each facility that we have, we're really, we've really got a good setup. Kind of envious, you know, of the setup we have.

I wish I had it early in my career. Each aquatic facility has two full-time managers that are 10 hours leading that pool. One, we've heard about Manager II. That's kind of the lead manager that is the one ultimately responsible for that aquatic venues operation, aquatic facilities operation. Is that like a property manager sort of role, but also including a pool? Like do they have to deal with the HVAC and all of these sorts of things as well? No, it's really just a manager role. I mean, they do have to deal with things in mechanical equipment, pumps, filters,

a little bit less on the HVAC, pool maintenance, cleaning, all that fun stuff. They do have to worry about that in water chemistry, but largely it's some management role. So they're the frontline folks that are scheduling, leading, running and service training, making sure lifeguards are well positioned and on task and providing active supervision. They're making sure the splash park attendants are being aware of their surroundings and watching children as they play to prevent injuries, right? And they're also doing high level functions

where they're helping revise our safety plan and our employee handbooks and things of that nature. So that would be the manager two role. Our Manager Is, for lack of a better word, are assistant managers. So they do a lot of those roles, but they are underneath the purview of that lead manager. And each facility has a varying number of lifeguard supervisors, which are part-time roles that help us run our pools. They're really the ones that are out there on the deck every day doing those spot checks on lifeguards,

making sure they're scanning appropriately, making sure that we're positioned well, that we're following our rotation plan, our zone plan. They're making sure that water chemistry is being checked on a regular basis. And they're allowing the managers to focus on their jobs, what they need to be doing. And then you have obviously our lifeguards that do basic support. They're actually lifeguarding the pool, keeping bathers safe, same thing with our splash park attendants. And then we have a full-time pool tech position

that they just kind of go around and help maintain everything. They do a lot of small work where they're doing some light electrical work, light plumbing, four-inch plumbing or less, things of that nature, changing some pumps out, the smaller pumps, doing our winterizing for outdoor pools, opening for our outdoor pools, and generally just providing support wherever we need it to keep the pools running. We're in a unique situation. I won't say unique, it's probably pretty common in municipalities, but we have in our county a property management division.

And they're the ones that work on the pool boilers. They're the ones that work on lighting and HVAC. And they do some of the heavier lifting on the larger-sized pipe and things of that nature. So we've got a pretty interesting setup here that really works. Okay, I got you. And all, so the guys listening to this who are post-service guys, they might be able to relate. It sounds like you have an in-house tech working for you? Yeah, okay. Yeah, we have an in-house tech and then there are some things that we just, we don't ask him to do. We have pretty sizable filters,

pretty large filter areas. And so we wouldn't ask our pool tech to change one of those sand beds. Now the smaller ones on our splash pads, we have a series of tandem Pentair TR 140s. He'll change those, that sand all day long. He'll service those filters. But when we get to the really large stuff, some of our big 30, 40 horsepower pumps, 20 horsepower pumps, we would actually call in another, an outside firm,

commercial-specific firm to work on those. And do they usually run like a procurement process for that? Do you have a firm you regularly work with or how does that work? Yeah, it depends on how big the work is. If we have, if our job is over $50,000, then we're required by county government to go through the bid process. You know, if the generally we don't have to bid out. So it just depends on how big that number is. We've got a great company in middle Tennessee that we use. He doesn't pay to advertise on your platform,

so I won't give the name. No, give his name, give his name. It's Neil Swaney with CAST T.N. Commercial Aquatic Sales and Service. Yeah. I've really enjoyed kind of working with him and being able to bounce some of our needs off. And him and I, we designed a retrofitted system for one of our pools, when we replaced a filter system. So it's really good to have that commercial-specific company. And he's unique in that he only works with commercial pools.

He doesn't need residential work. Okay, well, you might have to see if I can get him on this podcast. I'm sure we can make that happen. Okay, okay. You know what, I'll make some connections. It sounds good and it sounds like he, when you have like bigger repairs or something, that's something that's beyond like a filter replacement or sand replacement, like you were saying, that you would, what do you, so this would be interesting to guys listening to this. A lot of guys are just residential and they just do residential, but there's a process of learning how to do bids and learning to service commercial pools.

Do you have any advice for these folks who are just regularly doing residential routes? Maybe they have a few techs working for them. What are the sort of things that you look for? Working for a county in someone who's gonna do a repair for one of your commercial pools, for example. I'll look for knowledge and experience. That, I mean, those, honestly, those are the two biggest things we look for, right? So if we're looking at, you know, when we look at residential versus commercial pools, I use a Kia and a Ferrari, agree, you know, kind of comparison, right?

Sure. Yeah, great car, you know, both the Kia and the Ferrari, they both have wheels, they have an engine, they use gas, they have seats, windshields, windshield wipers, et cetera, right? But the difference between a Kia Optima and a Ferrari LaFerrari or a Ferrari California, that's a pretty wide gap, right? Yeah. So that's kind of the same thing we see in commercial pools. Now, I'll say this, we need good commercial pool techs, we don't have enough. In my region, there are one, two, three

commercial-specific companies where that's all they do. They don't touch residential, they're commercial specialists, serving a big chunk of the Southeast. Interesting. How big are the companies? How many techs do they have? Do you have a sense of that? I only for one of them, one company has about five techs. Okay, interesting. The other may have, you know, up to 20. We're not talking about a hundred techs. Yeah. But we definitely need more good commercial techs that are out there, right?

So what happens a lot of times is, because it's interesting because water chemistry is water chemistry. The water doesn't care where it's at. The water is going to be the water, right? The same principles that we use in my big 50 meter commercial pool, with two region DE filters and large cal-hypo feed systems and, you know, very expensive automated controllers, right?

That's the same things we see in the residential pool. We see a filtration, we see piping, right? Depending on the residential pool, you know, it might be a chlorine generator, right? Versus an automated controller, but we see controlled feed systems, right? We see the same principles. It's just a matter of scale and complexity, right? So when I'm looking for a pool tech, what I'm looking for is knowledge, right? Are they knowledgeable about hydraulics?

Not engineering level, right? But are they knowledgeable about hydraulics? Or do they understand the basics of filtration? Do they understand, you know, kind of this essential water chemistry? Not just, you know, dump a bunch of chlorine in, right? And drop acid once a week, but do they understand how chlorine and pH work together, right? Do they understand what the LSI is? Do they understand, you know,

how cyanuric acid impacts disinfection, right? So those are things that, you know, if a pool tech really understands, and when I say really understands, it's not just what the pool store with their boss tells them. It's not just what the testing lab spits out, but truly like what's the research say? What's the data say? Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. The rest of it is what has been their experience, right?

What kind of systems have they worked on? Have they worked with automated controllers? Have they only worked with chlorine generators? Have they worked with acid feed systems, right? Have they worked on anything larger than two inch pipe? Have they worked with Schedule 80? So those experiences are kind of key. Now here's the challenge, right? That's a pretty big laundry list and something that's very niche. So we have to be willing to a certain degree

to help teach some of those basics. I don't expect a pool tech to come into any one of our pools and know how to tap in to schedule 80 pipe properly. You said, scheduling? What does that mean? Schedule 80. Schedule 80, okay. Schedule 80 is the big thick gray pipe. Okay. Yeah, used in really commercial applications. Holds up all the pressure, fairly UV resistant and you can tap into it pretty easily. It's a really thick wall pipe. Schedule 40 is a much thinner wall.

So we're willing to teach and most commercial companies are willing to teach to a certain degree. But if all you know is how to skim something out, how to run a Riptide, take a water sample to the store for a printout and add chems the next week based off the printout, if that's all you know, it's just not great, right? It's not what we're looking for. And to be completely honest, that's not fair to the homeowners, right? And the homeowners in the residential market, these pools now are the $40,000 pools of the 1980s and 90s

and even early 2000s, they're done, man. Those are gone. People are building 90, 100, $200,000 pools. There's a guy out of North Carolina, his minimum build price is a quarter million dollars for a pool, right? So kind of my thing for techs everywhere is know your stuff, right? Not just what the printout says, not just what the Pentair or the Hayward rep says, right?

Know it, look into it, read it, research it, pull up Google Scholar, throw an idea out there, right? What is the actual science on glass filter media, right? Is it all that it's cracked up to be or is it not as good as what people make it out to be, right? Learn that. That's what we look for, that's what I look for. And that's what honestly the homeowners, that's what they need. Yeah, yeah, okay, this is interesting. This is interesting. I have a little bit of a research background. What are the, you mentioned pulling up Google Scholar.

Who are the people who are doing research in terms of the, I don't even know what the sort of fields, I've tried to look into this a little bit. You talk about hydraulics and chemistry. What are the sort of interesting lines of research that are happening with pools that you may or may not be aware of? Well, one is we don't have enough researchers doing research, a specific aquatic specific research. Yeah, a lot of what we know is pulled off wastewater. Okay. Yeah, that's a lot of what we know about filtration, efficacy, things of that nature.

Disinfection comes straight from wastewater. There are those like private companies doing the research or is it folks in academia or? A little bit of all of it. CDC's done a fair amount of research into disinfection. You know, specifically decontamination after a fecal incident, right? How do we sanitize the water? They've done a lot of epidemiological research. They've done some filter based research. Right, as of right now, the researchers I'm aware of, there's a guy named Dr. James Amburgey out of UNC Charlotte,

UNC Charlotte. He's the filtration expert. Like if you want to know something about filtration. Yeah, if you want to know something about filtration, you call Dr. Amburgey. As it relates to pools or just broadly? Pools, okay, okay. He is and some will disagree, but he's got the chops to prove it in the data. He is the country's filtration expert. You've got Roy Vore, V-O-R-E, who's a guy out of Georgia.

He's doing research right now into hot springs. Specifically disinfection, right? How do we disinfect hot springs that the whole point is mineralized water without destroying the mineralized water, right? So he's doing some really good work in there we're looking forward to. Dr. David Krause is a guy out of Florida. He's doing the largest ever study into Legionella and hot tubs. This is a study that will never be repeated.

It's an absolutely unicorn situation. So far, I think there's $3 million invested in it. And it's gone on for about two years now, maybe two and a half. The total number of hot tub days, if you're to repeat this study over a single hot tub, you're around 300 years. Well, that's how much data he's got. Yeah, it's massive. There's a gentleman named Chip Blatchley

out of Purdue University. He's the nation's air expert. He is doing a study into indoor pools and trichloramines and things of that nature that some of it's kind of a surprise, right? There are some conditions that he's identified that can be really scary. Got all the stars have to align in a bad way, but he has done that. But he's the world, the nation's ventilation expert for indoor pools. And he's doing a lot of good work.

There's a couple of guys out west. You know, one is Tom Kuechler. He is doing some interesting research into breakpoint chlorination, along with Richard Falk. You may know Richard Falk from WaterGuru when trouble free pools. And they're also looking into not only breakpoint chlorination, but a really interesting thing. I'm waiting for this to drop, right? But historically, we've always said no cyanuric acid on indoor pools. They have, I haven't seen the full paper.

It's not ready yet. But their research is showing that low levels of cyanuric acid at an indoor pool may actually help prevent formation of chloramines. So that one, when that drops, that's gonna be interesting. So him and Richard are doing good work. Stan Pickens is doing good work. That's honestly about all the direct research I can think of right now in the U.S. at least. Okay, well, I'll have to look at these names and maybe find myself some papers

to read through after this. Is it interesting? How does this apply to your, I figure you're aware of this because of your work at, with the CMAHC. I'm curious, what does your work look like there? You talked about in detail, kind of the priorities in terms of pushing the needles, but what does your work look like with CMAHC? So my main role is that, we mentioned the CDC Model Aquatic Health Code. So the MAHC was a model guidance developed really first released in 2014 that was filling a necessary needed,

was filling a void in the public health industry. You know, that's a whole conversation on its own, but it's model guidance, it's not mandatory. Although multiple states are adopting it in whole or in part, multiple counties are doing the same thing, cities across the country. Entities like YMCA, the USA have significantly been impacted by the MAHC and have adopted it in their standards and guideline, operation guidelines. The DOD, lifetime fitness, I mean, Boy Scouts.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on, right? So my primary function of my role is to help CDC maintain the MAHC. So in my role in CMAHC, we'll lead the revision process, we'll sort through change requests, we'll assemble experts and stakeholders to review change request and then help maintain and update the MAHC, which the last edition was released in December of 24, the fifth edition. Apart from my duties, maintaining the MAHC

and kind of leading that process, I spent a significant amount of time consulting with public health and the aquatic sector pulls across the country, where just helping them through issues, right? A lot of interpretation, a lot of, hey, what's this concept? What's this product? A lot of, hey, somebody's came up with X product, right? What is this? Do I need to use it? What's the real deal? So I spent a lot of time educating, supporting, troubleshooting,

connecting folks with resources, right? And giving them a good pathway to get the help they need when either no one else can, no one else has, or they have no idea where to go. A third part of what I do is, and this is part of moving the needle, right? Where we're producing guidance documents, we're producing guidance for public health in the industry. We've got several sheet, we call them evergreen sheets because they're up there and they're kind of permanent, right?

Things like, and this is all on CMAHC.org, but we've got things like breastfeeding in pools. What's the real deal, right? Is it nasty? Is it unsafe, right? So we have things like winterizing commercial pools, right? How does commercial pools deal with tropical storms and flooding? We just released our cold plunge guidance, right? Cold water venue guidance. We're working on some others for maximum sustainable gator load. We dropped another one back in June on phosphates and commercial pools,

which is always an interesting conversation. So we spent a lot of time doing that kind of work. Okay, okay. And so when you're talking about working with folks like the YMCA or the Boy Scouts, are these the sort of documents that you produce, the guidance documents and they end up following them or how does that work? Yeah, so those are just entities that have started using the MAHC in some form or other, right, either very directly, very highly integrated or even just parts.

I'll get phone calls periodically from those entities just asking questions. A little bit less on the Boy Scouts because they're primarily life guarding because they're traditionally black brown water, you know, lake water, and less so about pools. But I'll get some phone calls periodically asking, you know, to clarify something or to explain a concept. You know, but largely they work independently with this thing called the MAHC, which is really great. So I haven't looked over the MAHC, I should, but what sort of stuff is in it?

What's not in it is the better question. The best way to put it, right, is if you wanted to design, build, operate, and manage a hot tub, a splash pad, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a water park, a swimming lagoon, right, a float tank, you know,

and any number of facilities in between. Therapy pools, wading pools, right, that's the MAHC. It starts off very beginning from, you know, the processes involved for obtaining permits, right, to design considerations, filter sizing, decks, physical structures, right, steps, handrails, piping, you know, chlorinators, feed systems, automated controllers, right, UV systems, ozone systems, right, you want to use PHMB,

there's a section on the MAHC on it, right, by Glenon. You know, you want to use a mineral system, there's a section on the MAHC on it, you know. So the build, the operation, right, what's our minimum values, right? What should our turnover be? What should our minimum lighting be, right? Staffing, you know, how do you determine how many lifeguards you need, right? What is a lifeguard? What should a lifeguard training consist of, right? What should a pool operator training course consist of? What are those essential elements? How do you determine when a pool is unhealthy

and needs to be closed, right? All of, how do you respond to fecal incidents and Legionella contamination, right? All that's found in the MAHC. Okay, okay, and so- It's a one-stop shop. As someone in pool service, I'm familiar with the CPO largely because often folks are required to have the CPO to service commercial pools. So that's, the PHTA and the CPO are my main understanding of the policy landscape as it relates to pools. Where does the MAHC fit into this?

And maybe you could help me understand broadly what the policy landscape looks like generally as it relates to pools. Yeah, the policy landscape, let's start there. It's a wild thing. We don't have any federal mandated regulations around swimming pools. Apart from the Virginia Graeme Baker Act, right? CPSC for fencing and enclosures, right? The Department of Energy for pool pumps

and pool efficiency, right? That's really kind of it. The rest of it is going to be industry standards, industry guidelines, right? So those include on the construction side, you've got the MAHC obviously, you've got the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, the ISPSC, you've got the IAPMO. I forget the entire meaning of IAPMO, but I-A-M-P-O and those listening can find that.

Those all have construction standards, right? Have external standards like ANSI, American National Standards Institute. And they're ANSI 1 that defines construction standards. So the landscape is, it's all over the place. And that's the challenge, right? So that's also where the MAHC comes in. One thing the MAHC has been doing is it's been influencing. So through the work of the MAHC, almost passively, we see entities like IAPMO,

the ISPSC trying to align themselves closer to the MAHC, the Model Aquatic Health Code. And as that happens, we start to see these independent standards that oftentimes aren't mandatory, right? the MAHC is not mandatory unless it's adopted by a health authority. The ISPSC is not mandatory until it's adopted by the building departments. IAPMO, same thing, right? Until the building department adopts it, it's not mandatory. So with the MAHC has been moving the needle

with all of these things to be a little bit more refined as far as commercial pools go, a little bit closer than what they were when the MAHC first was released. And improving design and operations and sanitation and better health, right? All of those things, just from the gravitas of this thing called the MAHC. Okay, I see, interesting. The landscape, circle back around to your question, the landscape is all over the place. It's all over, there's not some unified one entity

that's providing federal regulation that everyone follows. It's kind of all over the place, okay. Apart from VGB, CPSC, DOE, right, Department of Labor, obviously, EPA on wastewater stuff. But as far as the nuts and bolts of the pool, yeah, there's no one federal agency that says this is how you build a pool. So that's a requirement. Yeah, that makes sense. And so being mindful of time here, we have pool guys listening to this, maybe people looking to get into the industry,

maybe folks who are in pools from a different angle, who serve as a hotel pool or aquatic director. What sort of advice do you have for people getting involved in the industry generally? It's a fun industry. One is do it. There's something nice about vacuuming a pool. There's something nice about the mechanical operations and this weird thing that we do, right? It's not certainly not a nine to five,

it's certainly not your normal type job. So first off would be do it, get into it, right? The second thing kind of ties back to education, right? You need to know more. And as you start learning more, the pieces come together, right? As you know more, you're less surprised by what you see. As you know more, you're better able to maintain that residential pool, that hotel pool, that HOA pool, right?

As you know more, the better professional you become. As you know more, the more certain you are about what you're doing. As you know more, the less surprised you are. As you know more, when you get those weird little things, you're better prepared to handle it and you're more confident to handle it. And ultimately, especially on the residential side, as you know more, you wind up building more trust with the homeowner and the client because you're taking care of their very expensive

investment a whole lot better. And you can help them sort through all the noise that's in the industry of bad products and false claims and bad processes and all that fun stuff. So really it boils down to Parker. Learn more, be inquisitive, right? Don't wait for education to come to you. That's the other thing. We don't have a lot of education in the industry, right? We've got the CPO course and the related qualified operator courses, right? I'm a CPO instructor.

We've got all the trade shows, right? The Western Pool and Spa Show, the International Show, the Northeast Show, the Florida Show, that you can go and get some good information, right? But you gotta fly out for those. Your average pool tech, I mean, are you gonna spend a couple of grand out of your pocket to fly to the Northeast for this show? Probably not, right? So how do you identify ways to learn? So how do you become inquisitive and seeking the answers

and seeking out the questions to ask and then finding the answers, right? And how do you take the initiative to say, I'm a pool tech, right? I'm not just a pool cleaner. I'm not just here to vacuum your pool. I'm here to operate your pool and be a professional and really just start digging into data and research and guidance. So it starts with being inquisitive. It starts with that yearning to know more. And the other thing too is don't trust a single source.

Don't trust just what I say. Don't trust just what the MAHC says. Go out, find other sources, right? I'm a cal hypo guy. I like cal hypo. But you know what? I'm very well versed on sodium hypochlorite and trichlor. If for no other reason than to help identify why am I a cal hypo fan, right? And when I run across these other facilities, we're running trichlor or sodium hypochlorite, liquid chlorine to where I understand

what the issues are, right? I understand everything that goes in the chlorine generation even though I may not have it. So, you know, that's the thing, right? Is be inquisitive, drive your own education, get out there and learn, look for opposing information and just absorb everything you can. Don't read one paper on cyanuric acid. Read five, all right? Don't read one paper or one source or one sales pamphlet on glass filter media. Read 10, all right?

And if you start doing that, that's how you build your knowledge. And oh, and by the way, Parker, that's exactly how I built mine. There's no school for this. That's exactly how I built my knowledge was being inquisitive. What is this? How does this work? And finding those trusted resources, having a salesman come in, this is the best thing since sliced bread. You need it, right? What's the data behind it, okay? So yes, this is the best thing since sliced bread

or no, this is snake oil. I'm running away. Yeah. That's my advice in a nutshell. I love it. I love it. And so people listening to this were maybe they were in Tennessee looking for a CPO course or something like this, or they just generally wanna learn more about what you do. Where might you direct them? Yeah, go to wcparksandrec.com or just Google Williamson County parksandrec.com. And you can come up, you can look for aquatics,

you can find contact information, right? If you go to our website and go to online registration, type in CPO, you can find my CPO classes. I also upload all my classes into the CPO Course Locator for PHTA. And yeah, come on by. And hey, if you're in the area, give me some advanced notice. I'm more than happy to sit and talk with anybody. You know, it's fun. I'm a nerd. I'm a poor nerd. So I love talking with folks and leading and guiding folks. So feel free to come on by.

Great, great. That's Dewey Case, everyone. Thank you so much for your time on the show. And thank you everyone for listening. Thank you, Parker.