The Georgia Senate passed a watered-down version Tuesday of a swimming pool bill that initially could have exempted 70 percent of all Georgia pools from public health and safety inspections.
The latest version of House Bill 219 would allow operators of townhouse, condo and subdivision pools to "opt out" of a 36-item public health inspection, provided each pool serves no more than 75 swimmers.
These pools would still be subject to a five-point inspection, focused largely on safety.
Apartment complexes would be subject to current inspections — usually one before or at the opening of the swimming season and the other in midseason.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Jeff Jones, R-Brunswick, initially would have done away with pool inspections for apartments, subdivisions, condominiums, townhouses and timeshares. But child and safety advocates opposed it.
Michael Beach of the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said outbreaks of diarrhea illness, plus eye, ear, respiratory and skin infections occur at swimming pools across the country each year. The main culprits: the improper handling, mixing and storage of chemicals, and faulty equipment.
The CDC considers U.S. pool inspection “the front-line protection for swimmers in this country,” said Beach. the associate director for healthy water with the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
State Sen. William T. Ligon Jr., R-Brunswick, who squired the bill through the Senate, said it "resolves a property rights issue" dealing with swimming pools and "onerous regulations."
The bill recognizes the rights of individuals but also incorporates some safety, Ligon said.
An amendment was defeated that would have required local boards of health to cap their inspection fees at the actual costs of the inspections.
Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairwoman Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said she believes local health departments will use the fee to maintain adequate resources to do their job, not as "a blank check."
Unterman also alluded to the serious problems that can develop in swimming pools, referencing White Water. An E.coli outbreak at a kiddie pool at the Cobb County swim park hospitalized seven children and resulted in one death in 1998.
The push for this bill was reportedly sparked by reports of an overzealous inspector in one South Georgia county, Unterman and others said.
In 2006, the CDC sampled 160 pool filters in metro Atlanta and found that 8 percent of pool filters were contaminated by parasites that cause outbreaks — meaning that someone sick contaminated the pool with feces.
In another metro Atlanta study in 2012, more than half of pool filters contained E. coli, again an indication of fecal contamination, the CDC found.
In 2008 data from 15 jurisdictions, 60 percent of the pools had one or more violation, and 12 percent resulted in immediate closure due to a public health hazard, Beach said.
The bill goes back to the House for reconsideration.
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