I was telling a friend about a freshwater swimming pool that I used in the early 1960’s when I worked at the corner of Van Ness and Market in San Francisco. The pool was inside downstairs near the corner of Oak Street and Van Ness.
My friend told me about a pool in Austin Texas that is fed by a freshwater stream. I was delighted to hear about it. I asked how Austin handled the sanitation issues. My friend said that the water changed on such a regular basis that Austin bureacrats seemed happy with the quality.
The fact is my friend didn't know.
My 1960’s pool was wonderful to swim in. It was in a basement and was freshwater fed from the Hayes Valley River that was, and still is, underground. It is one of several underground rivers in San Francisco.
My pool facilities were not heavily used and were not very well maintained. By that I mean that there was a constant smell of fungus in the dressing room and dark splotches visible on ceilings.
By 1964, the city had closed my wonderful freshwater, chlorine-free, pool. The city claimed that the water must be chlorinated. Chlorination was obviously necessary to satisfy some bureaucrat. Also obviously, the pool no longer had the revenue to bribe the local bureaucrats.
The bureaucrats continued to maintain their preposterous chlorination policy until 2010.
I know that because the gigantic pool at the University of San Francisco, I swim in, was designed in the 1970’s to have an ultraviolet-light purification system. The bureaucrats would not let the ultraviolet system be used and required chlorination. The ultraviolet was finally permitted in 2010.
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