East Hampton YMCA Pool Making Kids Sick, Parents Say

Some parents of kids who swim regularly at the East Hampton YMCA say that issues with water and air quality in the Y swimming pool area have caused chronic respiratory pain and illnesses for years and that scheduled upgrades to the building may not be enough to address the issues.

In addition to the planned replacement of the building’s HVAC and dehumidification system, the Y building, which opened in 1999 and is owned by East Hampton Town, needs upgrades to its water treatment and ventilation system, parents told the Town Board this week.

“The swim team spends very long hours in this environment—most have chronic coughs and use inhalers, some have burnt throats and, most recently an outbreak of pneumonia,” parent Michael Forst told the East Hampton Town Board on December 17. “We are a town of water people. The health of the YMCA needs to be a top priority.”

Parents of regular swimmers have been lodging complaints about illnesses they linked to the conditions at the Y swimming facilities for at least five years, particularly following swim meets, when the pool’s use is most intense.

Both the East Hampton High School swim team and the independent East Hampton Hurricanes swim team use the Y pool for practice and meets.

“The usage of the pool is over the top in terms of what anyone could have imagined,” said a swimmer’s parent, Alex Dehavenon. “On one hand, that is a wonderful thing. On the other hand, it has put strains on the system.”

Board members on Thursday night approved a $750,000 bond for upgrades to the Y facilities, including replacement of the building’s dehumidification apparatus in the swimming pool area. But some say the upgrades do not go far enough to address the health issues swimmers are suffering.

“I find the scope of the [planned] work quite narrow,” Mr. Dehavenon said of the coming upgrade projects. “It focuses just on the HVAC … dehumidification system. The problem with the pool is much broader than that. It’s as much about water quality as it is about air quality.”

The symptoms seen are not uncommon nationwide among regular swimmers.

Mr. Dehavenon told the board that the federal Centers for Disease Control have recommended that heavily used pools or those used largely by kids and elderly people should have secondary water filtration systems that treat the water in other ways than the standard chlorination system.

Steve Kenny, a parent of a former swim team member and owner of SRK Pools, said the symptoms seen by team members, including his son in 2013, are common reactions to high levels of tri-chloramines, a byproduct given off when chlorinated swimming pool water interacts with bodily fluids like sweat and urine.

“He came home from a swim meet one day and had a cough attack and we couldn’t get it to stop—it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced,” Mr. Kenny said of his son’s experience in 2013, a tale echoed by other parents interviewed this week. “They need three layers of protection. I’ve been telling the town this for 13 years. I’m willing to do whatever it takes, because I have two young daughters who want to swim.”

Mr. Kenny has recommended that the town install a system that treats the pool water with ozone and ultraviolet light, in addition to the standard chlorine filtration. He said that such a system would cost about $180,000 to install.

The plans for the quarter-million dollars to be borrowed this week, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said, are to replace the building’s boiler system, two water heaters and upgrade the dehumidification unit in the ventilation system. Ms. Gonzalez, the Town Board liaison to the YMCA, said engineers will also be looking at reinforcement of some of the steel supports of the building that may need replacement.

Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said that the potential need for additional filtration systems will be something the town’s consultants will look at.

“It’s my understanding that the new [dehumidification] system will go a long way to addressing the issues there,” she said. “But rest assured, all eyes are on it. They will be monitoring it very closely.”

Ms. Gonzalez said that the addition of other water treatment systems may be something more appropriately made by the YMCA, as part of their management and maintenance agreement with the town.

Harvey Horowitz, the chairman of the YMCA board of supervisors, said this week that the overseers of the Y will indeed be exploring the need for additional systems to improve the health of swimmers at the pool.

“We have a high degree of confidence that this new system, and some new exhaust fans we’re putting in, should alleviate the problem,” Mr. Horowitz said this week. “I feel for the kids who have been affected. If we can find some support for it, we’ll put it in. We are looking at everything.”