With temperatures soaring, diving into a cold pool seems very tempting. But are Beijing's public swimming pools clean? Photos: CFP 

On June 12, a news conference was held by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health about strengthening regulations on the hygiene and safety of public swimming pools in town. Managers of 120 swimming pools gathered at the meeting to hear these plans. With Beijing now roasting and the idea of swimming becoming increasingly attractive, Metro Beijing decided to investigate whether the new regulations will bring about a cleaner, fresher future for the city's pools. 

More transparency

Ma Yanming, the deputy director of the publicity department of the bureau, told Metro Beijing that they are the most advanced regulations on swimming pools to date. "The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health and the section bureau of each district have asked for meetings with managers of all public swimming pools, which number nearly 800 in Beijing," he said. "Examinations will be conducted for 100 days from June 1 to September 10, about a month longer than normal."

Ma explained that if someone is not pleased with the hygiene of a swimming pool, they can call 12320, a complaint hotline for health and safety in both Chinese and English. If the pool is later found to have problems, it could face a 30,000 yuan ($4,755) fine, alongside bad press on the bureau's official microblog page on Sina Weibo.

At the same time, each swimming pool will be graded A, B, C or a no grade level. Those that are awarded C or no grade are not qualified to operate. As for A and B, visitors will at least know vaguely how clean the water is before they dive in.

"What is also different from previous years is that even if you reach the top level A, which means the water is clean and transparent, your swimming pool will still be examined at least twice a year, not just once," said Ma. "Also, the managers of the swimming pools won't be informed about our examinations in advance [to ensure there is no cheating]."

On top of rating how clean a pool is, pool managers have also been given instructions for cleanliness maintenance. "We require that every swimming pool should have a foot washing pool, the swimming water needs to be refreshed on a daily basis with chlorine disinfectants and visitors should not be allowed to use the pool if they have easily contagious infections like conjunctivitis [an eye infection]," Ma explained. "Special signs need to be posted in each swimming pool to ensure that those who have these sorts of diseases are barred from entering the pool."

Zhou Zijun, a professor from the School of Public Health of Peking University, supported this specific regulation. "For swimmers, diseases like conjunctivitis are quite common," he said. "Since conjunctivitis is easy to spot, the establishment of disease checking points in swimming pools functions to stop it spreading in the water."

Still unclear

It seems the new government regulations are well thought out and are definitely steps in the right direction. However, some doubt the effectiveness of them. On the bureau's official Weibo page, a man named Longferry said that they would be good, but only if taken seriously enough.

From Ma's perspective, ensuring that all the public pools adhere to the new guidelines will be difficult. "Since there are only around 2,000 supervisors in town to regulate swimming pools, responsibility basically lies in the hands of the management and administrators of these swimming pools."

Of course these managers have their own priorities. A major one is profit.

Cai Zhenggu, the manager of Yangguang Swimming Pool, told Metro Beijing that water quality maintenance is very challenging. "Many swimming pools closed because they were not making money or were unable to maintain the standard of water quality," Cai said. He highlighted that the annual cost of his swimming pool is significantly more than 1 million yuan. "In the face of losing money, it is tough for some people to manage the facilities well," he added.

"Purifying water is a tough task," Cai added. "An ordinary public swimming pool has up to 500 tons of water. It is a difficult and long process to ensure the water constantly meets these hygiene standards."

Wang Jian, the manager of Ditan Swimming Pool, voiced similar concerns. "The national standard for water quality follows criteria that basically dictates it needs to be as purified as tap water," he said. "It means that we need to circulate water for 24 hours a day to maintain the water quality, which is a very thorough process." For Wang, when he bought a circulation system for his swimming pool, it cost him thousands of yuan. As a privately operated swimming pool, he receives zero subsidies from the government. Wang takes the issue of water hygiene very seriously and therefore it is an expense that he simply must swallow. But other people might cut corners in the face of more expense on their part.

On top of adding chemicals to the water, filtering the water and prohibiting people with infections from swimming, managers of swimming pools also have to restrict the number of swimmers to ensure the water quality remains at the standardized level. "If the number of swimmers exceeds our required standard, then you have to wait in line for swimming," added Wang.

Again, how many people is the right amount in a swimming pool is not easy to decipher and is case dependent. "There is no official regulation on the maximum amount of swimmers that a swimming pool should accommodate. Swimming pools have their own regulations on this, depending on the size of the pool," explained Cai. "My swimming pool, for instance, is set at about 70 swimmers per day."

Don't just dive in

Overall it seems the new measures might help make Beijing's swimming pools cleaner, but there is still no guarantee. So how can people judge the quality of the water themselves? Of course a very unclean pool will be easy to spot before you get in.

However, water can look deceptively clear from above. Cai said that the best way to judge water cleanness is to decipher how clearly you can see one side of the swimming pool from the other, if you are underwater wearing goggles. "If the water is gloomy instead of transparent, then the quality is not right," he said.

Furthermore, while obvious infections like conjunctivitis are easy to spot, others are not and the cleanliness of a pool is partly related to the cleanliness of its users, which is somewhat difficult to control. "If the swimmers could take a shower before getting into the pool, and if they don't spit and urinate in the pool, then the water quality will be much better," Cai said. "In some swimming pools in Japan, for instance, taking a shower before swimming is mandatory for every swimmer."

Therefore how many showers there are by the pool is a good indication, especially if these showers are being used. As for spitting and urination, unless it is really obvious, at this stage you just have to have faith in your fellow swimmers.