SWIMMING POOL WATER

THE pandemic has hit tourism and with less demand “hotels now operate with half their capacity” Chamber of Environmental Engineers (ÇMO) head Nilden Bektaş Erhürman said.

“Maybe they do not feel the need to work their pool treatment [systems]. We think that [public pools] will be cleaner [than the sea] because there is no open water input, but their purification [system] may not be switched on.

“In a period when we need to protect public health the most, it is required to conduct the necessary tests for environmental health and to share them with the public.”

If you want to check the cleanliness of public pools before enjoying a fun summer day, you would have to wait for the government to complete the publicly available list of reports, which currently only goes up to an incomplete June 2020 report of only two hotels in Lefke.

This report determined that “free chlorine could not be found” at the Vouni King Hotel pool, which is the concentration of chlorine available for disinfection.

According to the US-based Water Quality and Health Council, which is “a group of scientific experts, health professionals, and consumer advocates”, maintaining the chlorine level at a desirable level depends on “the pH of the water and the presence of unwanted substances in the pool, such as urine, perspiration, body oils and lotions, which compete with chlorine and react with it”.

Despite the inability of the public to find out about the safety of hotel pools, and the ÇMO raising awareness of the issue, an inspector from the Health Ministry rejected an online ÇMO statement on the issue and claimed that all analyses were being done and that reports were available for those interested.

Cyprus Today contacted the inspector who refused to make a statement and later deleted their online comment.