New pool safety law drains park district budgets

A new law designed to prevent swimmers from being sucked against pool drains and drowned is proving expensive for some public pool operators.

Making the changes necessary to comply with the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act - a federal law designed to prevent the suction of drains from trapping children at the bottom of pools or spas - could cost some park districts more than $30,000.

The Schaumburg Park District spent about $20,000 buying 60 new drain covers for its three outdoor and two indoor pools, said Doug Kettel, superintendent of facility services. Almost all of the covers were installed before Memorial Day, when the outdoor pools opened for the season.

Not all suburban pools were as quick to adopt the new regulations. Although the Pool and Spa Safety Act became effective Dec. 19, 2008, confusion about Illinois' exact requirements and a shortage of acceptable drain covers are creating a slow path to compliance for many pool operators.

"I would say at best, the expectations were initially very murky," said Jay Bullman, aquatic facilities supervisor for the Vernon Hills Park District.

The Illinois Department of Public Health, the agency in charge of enforcing the act, updated its Swimming Pool and Beach Bathing Code May 18 so state rules exactly match the national law, said spokeswoman Melaney Arnold.

The act requires public pools to install layers of protection against drain suction injuries, including anti-entrapment drain grates and a vacuum release system to stop the pump if necessary.

Making the safety changes will not necessarily save on insurance costs, said Schaumburg Park District business manager Steve Burgess. He said the park district's insurance companies require compliance with all relevant laws, including the Pool and Spa Safety Act.

Activists pushed for the law after 7-year-old Virginia Graeme Baker, granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker, was sucked to the bottom of a hot tub in 2002 and died.

Pool drainage systems can cause entrapment in a variety of ways, said Pete Wagner, president of Triodyne Safety Systems, a Glenview-based company that sells drain covers for residential pools. Long hair can snag and small fingers can get stuck if kids play with drain covers or try to remove them. Old covers can also deteriorate from exposure to the pool's chemicals and the sun's rays.

Drain covers that comply with the act are made with stronger plastic and designed so fingers cannot get stuck, Wagner said. They also suspend a swimmer's weight to prevent the torso from covering an entire drain, which can create strong suction.

Although legislators wanted all seasonal pools to comply by their opening dates this summer, Arnold said pool inspectors from county health departments will take into account how much time pools need to make these changes.

"We're not going to require a pool to close as long as they can show that they're in the process of complying," Arnold said.

Instead, inspectors will educate pool operators about what the law requires.

"We're not out to shut anyone down. It's more of a cooperative effort," said Mark Matuck, program manager in environmental health for the Cook County Department of Public Health.

The attitude will keep many suburban pools open for the summer, even without compliant drain covers and plumbing systems.

"The government made this law for a purpose and we'll all be safer because of it," said Karen Spandikow, aquatics manager for the Oak Brook Park District. "I don't feel like the public is at risk now."

Compliance will cost the Oak Brook Park District about $3,000 for engineering services and seven new drain covers, while the Cary Park District spent $1,057 on two replacement drain covers.

Updates to the Mount Prospect Park District's two outdoor swimming centers are estimated to cost $31,500, according to a report by Metro Design Associates, an Elgin-based engineering firm with expertise in pool design.

"It will involve re-engineering the main drain areas of the pool," said Jim Jarog, building department manager.

Mount Prospect's pools are not the only ones that require more than just new drain grates to comply with the act's safety standards, said Keith O'Higgins, president of Metro Design Associates.

"Newer pools, ones built in the 1990s or 2000s, are experiencing just changing out the (drain) grates to comply," said O'Higgins, whose firm is working with about 35 park districts. "For the older pools, it's a little more involved."

O'Higgins said many pools his company has evaluated are newer facilities that do not require significant plumbing system overhauls.

"Compared to some pools, we're getting off easier just because of how our pools are designed," Bullman said about Vernon Hills' Family Aquatic Center.

Pools designed with large "unblockable" drain grates, impossible for a human body to cover completely, require fewer changes, as do pools with drainage systems that use holding tanks to filter water without creating suction.

"Our drains are not connected to the pump system so they don't make a vacuum," said Orin Main, superintendent of maintenance for the Vernon Hills Park District.

Drains and pumps have also been separate at Meineke Pool since the Schaumburg Park District installed a new filtering system there last summer, Kettel said.

The CoCo Key Water Resort inside the Sheraton Chicago Northwest Hotel in Arlington Heights had difficulty finding a manufacturer for its drain covers. The pool will have them custom made, said Michelle Hoffman, director of marketing for the water resort.

"They're hard to find at this point," she said. "It's a lengthy but important process."