News

State shuts down Middleton water park

By Mike Stucka
Staff writer
Published: March 6, 2008

MIDDLETON — The state and town health departments shut down the CoCo Key Water Resort yesterday morning because a test showed one type of chlorine was 20 times higher than state standards allow.

Suzanne Condon, director of the state Bureau of Environmental Health, said levels of a chlorine byproduct, called combined chlorine, were far above state limits. That's an indication that too much "free chlorine" had been added to the pool to control contamination, a problem that the state suspected when visitors began reporting chemicals burned them in February, she said.

"What's difficult to determine is how high these levels (of free chlorine) have been," Condon said.

Kristin Perry, general manager of CoCo Key, said in a statement that the resort is investigating the problems and working with state and local officials to protect guests.

"We have also reached out to the industry's leading consultants to advise us, our engineers and our technicians in this matter," she said. "We will continue to cooperate fully with the health department to ensure the safety of our guests. Our goal is to provide a clean and safe environment."

"They clearly were cooperative in closing, so we have every reason to believe they'll get right on this," Condon said.

The tests showed high levels of combined chlorine, a byproduct created as free chlorine is used up fighting contamination.

"Those levels are required to be much, much lower, 0.2 parts per million or less, and in the case of measurements taken today they were 1.4, 1.8 and 3.0," Condon said. "It is indicative that chlorine levels were much higher previous to this. They need to get adequate testing equipment to tell us how high the levels are."

The resort's three pools and its spa will be closed at least until after tonight's Middleton Board of Health meeting, and after the resort buys adequate testing equipment and "shocks" the pool with an overdose of chlorine to cleanse the water, Condon and Middleton Health Director Derek Fullerton said yesterday.

The chlorine-testing equipment at the resort can't show how far out-of-bounds chlorine levels had become beyond the 5-parts-per-million mark, Condon said. State regulations say free chlorine levels should be between 1 part per million and 3 parts per million.

"Clearly, this equipment wasn't adequate for this kind of an operation," she said.

Fullerton said the chlorine-testing equipment used at the resort was acceptable but could have been better.

"There's a better test kit out there, which gives easier, more direct, more identifiable results. That's what (the state) is recommending they have, and we'll be supporting that recommendation," Fullerton said yesterday.

Fullerton said CoCo Key was also supposed to have a thermometer to judge whether a spa was under the 104-degree limit. That spa had been shut down before inspectors arrived yesterday after workers drained, scrubbed and refilled it following complaints. No thermometer was visible to inspectors, Fullerton said.

The $20 million, 190,000-gallon water attraction, which features four slides, opened in May at the Sheraton Ferncroft Resort and is the only one of its kind in New England.

Since this weekend, four CoCo Key guests have said their families were burned or sickened by exposure to chemicals in the spa area of the resort throughout February. A 6-year-old boy coughed to the point of vomiting, according to his mother, Nancy Joslin of Beverly, and others had asthma attacks or went home with sunburn-like rashes.

The water resort was closed and cited in mid-February after Middleton Health Department tests showed chlorine levels that were too high, and testing records were found to be incomplete, Fullerton said.

Burke School in Peabody, which had organized a "CoCo Key Night" for more than 200 students and parents tonight, has canceled its plans, PTO Vice President Erin Maribito said.

The Middleton Board of Health meets with CoCo Key officials tonight at 7 in the Fuller Meadow School cafeteria.

Pool chemistry

CoCo Key has had problems with both types of chlorine the state regulates. Free chlorine, from chemicals added to the pool, can attack bacteria and other contaminants to sanitize the water. The other type of tested chlorine, called combined chlorine, is a byproduct from the free chlorine's attacks.

According to AquaChek, a company that makes chlorine test strips, "In pool and spa water, this form of chlorine has very little sanitizing ability, and no oxidizing ability. You can think of combined chlorine as a spent bullet."