Invercargill’s Splash Palace has faced the unfortunate task of cleaning up two code browns on the same day.
Last week, the learners pool closed for an hour and 45 minutes due to a faecal contamination incident, reopened for swimming lessons, and closed again due to contamination.
The double dose of doo-doo comes at a time when details have surfaced about an uptick in code browns at the pools.
Council manager aquatic services Stephen Cook said the recent incident involved a “small amount of additional matter” being found which prompted the pool’s closure for a further half hour.
“It is not clear whether this was from a separate incident or was overlooked due to its small size.”
Staff acted quickly in both instances and followed standard procedures, he said.
That involved closing the pool, cleaning the material and super-chlorinating the water.
A pool could remain closed for anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours, with the amount of time dependent on the “type of material”.
Local Democracy Reporting spoke to a source who claimed the second piece of faecal matter was stepped on by a swimming instructor who then smeared it “slightly” across the bottom of the pool.
Cook said there had been no reports of faecal matter being stepped in or transferred to the bottom of the pool.
Recent information provided by the council showed the number of code brown incidents at Splash Palace had exceeded 2024 numbers with two months to spare.
As of October 31, there had been 30 incidents resulting in 58.5 hours of unplanned pool closures compared to 28 incidents and 59.4 hours lost in 2024.
The leisure pool was the most common location for code browns.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
