Like every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is closing down many public water playgrounds, swimming pools, and hot tubs that don’t submit to health and safety regulations for this kind of aquatic sites.

In one of these incidents, Kentucky local health departments called for two full inspections of each public swimming pool that’s open during the summer season, making sure that these places remain safe over the year.

During the two full inspections, experts will thoroughly investigate the continuous operation of indoor facilities, as well as water chemistry from one month to another.

Local health department environmentalists are responsible for conducting these inspections, as well as monitoring the public pools and making reliable reports that could be shared with each local health department.

Beth Fisher, spokesperson for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, explains that those planning to vacation out of the state of Kentucky should take care of their safety themselves, seeing that such initiatives are not carried out everywhere.

“Almost one- third of local health departments do not regulate, inspects, or license public pools, hot tubs, and water playgrounds. We should all check for inspection results online or on site before using public pools, hot tubs, or water playgrounds,” added Michele Hlavsa, director of the CDC’s Healthy Swimming Program.

According to the inspection data from a 2013 CDC study, almost 80 percent of the public aquatic venues in the five large states that were involved had at least one health and safety violation.

The five states covered 40 percent of the nation’s public water facilities. A vast majority of the violations were related to lack of proper safety equipment, improper pH, and inadequate disinfectant levels.

Thousands of particular public pools, hot tubs and water playgrounds have been forced to close each year. The CDC’s most recent inspection data was collected in 2013 in which researchers examined the results of 84,187 routine inspections of 48,632 public aquatic venues.

About one in every five kiddie pools was closed. So you should be careful where you take your summer splash this season. Don’t expose yourself and your family to the health dangers of a public aquatic location that doesn’t keep up with the standards. Do a quick online search for inspection results, or ask the staff on site.
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