Staff at the Dundee Olympia had to be hosed down after a toddler pool was “super-dosed” with chlorine, it has emerged.
New details of safety concerns at the swimming centre have been revealed after a six-month fight by The Courier to get hold of documents.
The centre reopened to the public in December after a two-year closure and £6 million worth of repairs.
However, it was closed for another three months between February and May after a metal rod fell and almost hit a swimmer, and due to issues with the dosing of pool chemicals.
A freedom of information request by The Courier – first submitted to Leisure and Culture Dundee (LCD) in February – has now revealed further details of these problems.
Leisure and Culture Dundee say these issues have since been addressed.
Staff ‘hosed off’ at Olympia after pool ‘super-dosed’ with chlorine
We have obtained a series of emails and other reports showing the scale of the problems – particularly around the dosing of the pools.
Names have been redacted from the emails but the messages were exchanged between senior management at LCD, which operates the Olympia, and Dundee City Council, which owns the building.
After the publicly-funded leisure body failed to respond to The Courier’s request for six months, the documents were finally released after the case was appealed to the Scottish Information Commissioner.
Issues with keeping safe chemical levels in the pools were known at least a couple of weeks before the centre reopened to the public in December, and two months before the problem forced it to shut again.
On one occasion, staff who had been in the toddler pool had to be “hosed off” after it was “super-dosed (with) chlorine to unsafe levels”.
The correspondence – from January – said: “The signs are that, from the point we let people into the pools, the dosing system has not been able to cope.
“Prior to opening, I raised my concerns about them and it was having issues even before we had the public in, including an occasion where one of the pools super dosed chlorine to unsafe levels leading to us having to remove staff from the pools and hose them off.
“We have subsequentially had to make interventions this week to prevent the same thing happening to the public.”
Risk assessments stated that chemical dosing problems could cause skin and eye irritations, and “could lead to harm from both too little or too many chemicals”.
If safe dosing could not occur, the recommendation was to close the pools.
Emails exchanged between bosses on January 15 said that from December 11 onwards – when the first swimmers entered the pools for private test sessions – the centre had faced “big issues” with the dosing of chemicals.
Staff reported going through “a lot” of hydrochloric acid – used to reduce the pH of the water – while chlorine levels also were not rising quickly enough.
This continued into January – when the pools remained open to the public – as readings started to take “bigger swings” due to the control units timing out.
On January 10, an email said there was no chlorine in the toddler pool, despite levels being high the previous day.
The issues were related to the leisure and toddler pools sharing a tablet hopper – which doses chemicals.
Dundee Olympia opening period ‘operational nightmare’ due to chemical dosing issues
Further correspondence between bosses on January 11 showed growing fears about the situation.
An email said: “We have struggled through the opening period, however the last five (to) six days (have) been an operational nightmare because of the chemical dosing.
“Having identified the issues prior to opening we have worked with our plant ops team and gone off the advice of (swimming pool contractor) Barr & Wray.
“It’s not working and my concern is raising (sic) considerably.
“The dosing system is getting worse rather than better.”
The documents added that the control units were timing out up to seven times a day and that the chemical levels were either “far too high or low”.
There were also health and safety issues around staff accessing a control panel for a pump in the toddler pool.
One email from January 29 stated: “The toddlers’ pool pump trips out as soon as we put the power back on to the control panel.
“We should not be going into this panel as it is a health and safety issue and we are not trained electricians.”
Staff also said that another pump was leaking oil and that sand was found in the leisure pool and was collecting in the rapid river.
Three items fell from height at Olympia before three-month closure
In February, LCD shut the Olympia’s leisure and toddler pools, including the flumes, after a metal rod fell and nearly hit swimmers.
An email from the duty manager said that the steel rod fell on February 3 and “fortunately it never struck a member of staff or public”.
The documents also revealed that this was the third item to have fallen from height in the same area in the preceding weeks – though there are no other details on these incidents.
However, bosses believed that the danger had “potentially passed” as staff could not see anything else likely to fall.
The water pipe the rod was attached to was also supported in other ways and it did not seem likely that anything else would be dislodged.
An email chain from February 5 also showed that leisure bosses expected the pools to reopen within days after closing.
An email said: “Based on the timelines we have in regards contractors, it is likely that they won’t be reopen until Wednesday/Thursday.”
However, the pools did not reopen for another three months.
Risk assessments were updated later on February 5 to include the possibility of items falling from height from the flumes, missing bolts from the flume structure, movement in the flume tower and overall structure, and items falling from height in the pool hall.
The documents said there was a “likelihood of harm from an impact from above”, including a head injury, broken bones, and the potential for a fatality.
The control measures were to close the areas affected until they were made safe.
Leisure and Culture Dundee confirmed that the problems have since been addressed.
A spokesperson said: “Measures to resolve the issues highlighted have been completed and addressed.”
In a separate development, the Olympia’s training pool was forced to close in May after it was found emptied of water.
The Courier has taken a closer look at the numbers behind the leisure centre’s problems.
We have also explored six controversies that have rocked Leisure and Culture Dundee in recent years.
Conversation