Water quality tests are carried out every two weeks in Lviv’s swimming pools. Employees of the chemical laboratory of the municipal enterprise Administrative and Technical Management take water samples and analyse its composition.
The results are published on the city council website for Lviv residents. However, not all the city’s basins agree to conduct research.
The Dynamo sports pool is used for training every day from 6am to evening. Both children and repeated competition winners swim here. For example, Rostislav has been training in the pool since he was two years old, 6 days a week. He is a professional water polo player.
“The water suits me. It’s refreshing, cool, just right for summer. I’m training here, preparing for the Super Cup, then the Super League and the European Championship,” says the guy.
The director of the Dynamo Sports Palace, Serhii Kolmakov, says that the pool has special electronic devices to study the physical and chemical composition of the water.
“In addition to the automatic chemical supply station in the pool, we check the main components every two weeks using a special electronic device. But the main indicator that the water is good is, first of all, the complaints of the athletes. We have no complaints about the water.
Wounded National Guardsmen and border guards also undergo rehabilitation in this pool. So we have quite a lot of workload, so the water quality needs to be checked and done constantly,” says Sergey Kolmakov.
Some of the townspeople, including Andrey, like outdoor swimming pools. That’s why he visits the SKA pool up to three times a week. Here he trains with a coach. He has no complaints about the water quality.
“The water is very good, I go to the pool quite often and drink it regularly, because you swallow water anyway when you swim. But it’s okay, I’m fine,” says the swimmer.
When examining water quality in swimming pools, Anastasia Kryvulia, head of the chemical laboratory of the Administrative and Technical Management Municipal Company, takes water samples at two points: the deepest and shallowest parts of the pool.
“We collect water in sterile, clean, dry bottles to the top. We take it from a depth of about 20-30 cm from the surface of the water mirror. We seal the bottles and immediately take them to the laboratory for analysis. The bottles are transported without direct sunlight and without temperature changes,” says Anastasiia.
Water quality testing takes up to 4 days. The laboratory determines the acid-base balance of water, hardness, chlorides, free chlorine, iron, ammonium and dry residue.
“We have already conducted such analyses once. From the list of pools that were analysed, only the SKA outdoor pool showed small deviations – an excessive amount of chloride. We informed them of this information, and I hope they will fix it soon and bring all the indicators back to normal.
A number of pools have not yet agreed to cooperate for unknown reasons. These are the pools of the Sport Life chain and the Beach Water Park. They have not yet agreed to cooperate. I would not like to think that they have something to hide. The city’s sports department sent official letters about this option, and I think those pools will understand the importance of the safety of Lviv residents and will also cooperate,” said Lubomyr Zubach, Deputy Mayor of Lviv for Urban Development.