22 Aug Ever wonder how germs get into swimming pools?

How Germs Get In The Swimming Pool, Scientific American via Huffington Post

By Larry Greenemeier

(Click here for the original article)

As the summer winds down and Labor Day weekend approaches in the U.S., beaches and public pools will be filling up with swimmers looking to take one last dip outdoors before the season ends. Most people will hit the water without worrying about the microscopic organisms they'll be swimming with. Maybe that's for the best, considering what those organisms are and how they're introduced to swimming holes.

The protozoan organism Cryptosporidium, one of the most frequent causes of waterborne disease, has become a major problem in swimming pools, says Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona who's spent decades studying how pathogens are transmitted. Crypto is a microscopic parasite with a tough outer shell that allows it to survive for days even in properly chlorinated pools.