Guidance for Disinfectant Safety Shortage 2021 DOH 333-276

Applicability We are providing this guidance to assist local health staff and operators of water recreation facilities regulated under chapters 246-260 WAC and 246-262 WAC, which include facilities such as swimming pools, spas, wading pools, splash pads, wave pools, and water slides.

Background This pool season we expect severe shortages of chlorine products. The chlorine shortage will make operating a pool challenging, expensive, and more dangerous. As chlorine products become difficult to obtain, pool operators will need to find alternatives to their typical disinfectant routine in order to keep their pools open. Alternative products and chemical routines can present extreme danger to pool operators, swimmers, bathers, and others at the facility.

Chemical Dangers Pool chemicals can be dangerous. Many pool chemicals, including chlorine products, are not compatible with each other and can react violently if mixed. For example, mixing calcium with Trichlor will generate intense heat and may start fires, melt pool equipment, and cause injury. If the mixing takes place in a sealed container, like a chlorine feeder, it is likely to cause an explosion. Switching safely from one sanitizer to another must be done with extreme care. Switching chemical feeding equipment requires a construction review by the health department.

Basic Chemical Safety Chlorine and bromine are reactive and powerful chemicals. The primary hazards associated with these chemicals are: 1. Fire, intense heat, and explosion hazard. Disinfectant chemicals are often incompatible with each other. Switching disinfectant chemicals could be very dangerous to the pool operator and others. Two incompatibility issues are: a. Organic/inorganic incompatibility. Organic pool chemicals react violently when mixed with inorganic pool chemicals. Store organic chemicals away from inorganic chemicals and never mix them together. Be careful to avoid using incompatible products in the same disinfectant feeding equipment. b. pH incompatibility. Pool chemicals with widely different pH can also react violently and generate intense heat. Acids should always be stored away from bases and not mixed. Please note the comparative disinfectant chart (below) that some disinfectants have low pH, and some have high pH. 2. Poisonous gasses. It’s important to remember that disinfectants are poisons and some disinfectants can produce toxic chlorine gas when mixed with other chemicals. To summarize, avoid mixing incompatible chemicals in concentrated amounts. You should thoroughly understand how to use the chemicals you have on hand at your facility. Exercise extreme caution if and when you must use unfamiliar chemicals. If the chlorine shortage puts you in a position of using a new disinfectant chemical, make sure that you fully understand its use and its potential dangers. You can view a chemical safety video at this link: chlorine.org/pool- chemical-safety. You may also download a variety of safety posters, including chemical safety posters, at this link: cdc.gov/healthywater/swimming/materials/posters.

Page 1 of 3 Comparative Sanitizer Chart Product Name Strength pH Appearance Organic/Inorganic Trichlor 99% 3 granular and Tabs organic Dichlor 99% 6.5 Granular organic Calcium hypochlorite 60% 10 Granular, tabs, briquets inorganic hypochlorite 35% 11 Granular inorganic 3-12% 14 Liquid Inorganic Bromine 95% 4.8 Granular, Tabs Inorganic

Sanitary Water Do not operate your pool if you cannot provide clean, sanitary water. If you have difficulty finding chlorine products due to the chlorine shortage, and you don’t have sanitizer available, you must close the pool(s) until you can provide sanitary water with minimum disinfectant levels present in the water. Pathogens may grow in pools that do not have proper disinfectant levels and make people sick. Some pathogens found in pools cause severe illness and may be fatal. Maintain water chemistry in compliance with the pool code. Minimum required disinfectant levels are shown in the chart below.

Minimum Disinfectant Levels Swimming Pools Spas Disinfectant Type (wading/spray pools) Chlorine 1.5 ppm 3.0 ppm Stabilized Chlorine 2.0 ppm 3.5 ppm Bromine 2.5 ppm 4.0 ppm

Conserving your Disinfectant This year it is more important than ever to use every drop of sanitizer efficiently. Here are a few tips to help you do that.

1. Consider postponing your pool opening by a couple of weeks. Hold off on opening and using precious disinfectant until the weather is nice and hot. 2. Consider opening the pool later in the day. 3. Consider closing earlier. 4. Consider opening fewer days per week or only on hot days. 5. Limit the number of people allowed in the pool at one time. 6. Do you have two pools? Consider operating only one this year. 7. Ensuring that people thoroughly shower before swimming creates less chlorine demand. 8. Make sure you have the proper amount of sun stabilizer (Cyanuric acid) in your outdoor pools. Proper minimum levels for optimal sun protection is 30 ppm -50 ppm. Too much Cyanuric acid is also problematic because it can inhibit chlorine’s sanitation ability. Cyanuric acid has a mandated 90 ppm maximum. If Cyanuric acid levels are known to be too high at the beginning of the season, adjust it now. 9. Consider reducing target levels of pH. The ideal range for pH is 7.4–7.6. A target pH of 7.4 may reduce overall chlorine use. 10. Do not use Trichlor as a shock chemical. Other chlorine products (Lithium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite) or non-chlorine products like Potassium monopersulfate (KMPS) may be better choices.

Page 2 of 3 a. If you are not familiar with KMPS ensure you get training from your chemical supplier. KMPS can affect total chlorine testing making total chlorine levels appear higher than they are.

Supplemental disinfection 1. Installing supplemental disinfection like UV light systems or Ozone systems can help conserve chlorine; however, any changes to the pool system require review and approval either by the local health jurisdiction or the state Department of Health. Please check with your plan review jurisdiction on the practicality of installing a supplemental disinfection system. It is likely that review time and installation times will be too long to help much this summer.

Alternative disinfection 1. The chlorine shortage is expected to primarily impact pools that use Trichlor. Once Trichlor is no longer available, pool operators will seek alternatives, and this may affect the availability of other products. 2. Changing out disinfectant feeders requires plan review and may be too slow to provide effective relief. Plus, alternative feeders may also be in short supply as demand for these systems increase. 3. Only forms of chlorine and bromine are allowed as primary disinfectants. Some products used in the home market are not allowed such as Baquacil. 4. Hand-feeding chlorine? a. Allowed only as an emergency procedure (see above). b. Does not provide continuous introduction of disinfectant. c. Requires more maintenance time—testing and adjusting. d. Chemical safety issues. e. Chemical adjustments cannot be made with people in the pool. f. Chemical adjustments require some water circulation time to avoid chemical “hot spots” in the water. g. Operators may try pre-dissolving Cal-Hypo for quicker distribution in pool water, which may cause further chemical safety issues and new chemical handling rules (i.e., add chemical to water/not water to chemical) that operators may be unfamiliar with. h. May cause shifts in pool water balance that may be unfamiliar to the operator. 5. Can I put Bromine in my Trichlor feeder? a. Bromine is not an effective disinfectant choice in an outdoor pool—it cannot be sun stabilized. b. Bromine might react with Trichlor residue in the feeder causing a violent reaction—it might explode, melt the feeder, or start a fire. c. Putting Bromine in a feeder designed for trichlor such as Rainbow 300 and Pentair 300-29X will void the NSF rating on the feeder, making the feeder no longer code compliant.

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