Let's find the will to fix public pools threat now
It is not a matter of economics that has prevented nearly 90 percent of public swimming pools around Illinois and the suburbs from complying with a December 2008 deadline to install a critical piece of safety equipment.
It is not a matter of time, mechanics or bureaucracy.
It is a matter of will.
The safety work, as described in two days of reports by the Daily Herald and ABC 7 Chicago, is installation of a dome over unsafe drains or, in some cases, modifications of unsafe pumps. The work is needed to correct flaws that have caused serious injury or drowning for swimmers sucked against powerful drains.
Federal legislation approved more than two years ago required all public pools to complete repairs of dangerous drains. But so far, fewer than 100 of the state's 1,910 pool operators have been certified as completing the work and only a few hundred have submitted plans for approval.
The work is not particularly expensive. Experts told Daily Herald staff writer Jake Griffin a fix can be completed for about $1,000 - although, as some suburban pool operators have found, that can mount substantially for pools with multiple or complicated drains. A repair in Bloomingdale cost $25,000; one at a Rockford water park as much as $200,000. But these, experts say, are extreme cases.
A greater issue, officials contend, is the large number of pools that must be fixed and the comparatively small number of inspectors available to do the certifications. At the current pace, authorities predict it could takes years to make all of Illinois' out-of-compliance pools - including nearly 250 in the suburbs - safe.
How can that be? How is it that a year and a half past the deadline - not past the debate, the identification of the problem or the legislation dealing with it, but the deadline - a comparative handful of pools have even tried to comply with the law.
Ironically, pools in Illinois got a break when the state approved more-stringent regulations in February and, understanding the complications of that, allowed them to open even if they weren't compliant. Its thinking appears to be in line with that of pool operators willing to continue to take a risk simply because they haven't had a problem yet, much like drivers who forego insurance because they haven't yet had a crash.
The delay showed understanding, perhaps, but questionable wisdom. For while a few, like Bloomingdale, Lisle, Glen Ellyn and others finished the work, far, far more have done little or nothing to address a problem that has taken 70 lives and injured another 150 people since 1980.
Regulators complain that the task is too great and the time too short, but DuPage County, the only county in the state that handles its own inspections and permits, has shown that it can be done. DuPage requires pool operators to submit plans describing repairs and affirm they've completed the work.
Yes, that requires taking the word of operators that their pools are safe, but it also leaves them open to serious penalties, both civil and criminal, if they lie. As a result, DuPage County's level of compliance - more than 90 percent - is a direct contrast to that of the state as a whole and well above any other county in the Chicago region.
So, it can be done. Operators just need a firm threat that they will be shut down if they don't comply. Getting the state's entire complement of public pools perfectly in compliance may still take years, but making safety the rule rather than the exception is not at all outside the realm of possibility.
It is simply a matter of will.