Remember when you where a kid and you would go swimming? Your eyes would burn like crazy. And after a while you would get that kind of stiff feeling in your chest and a barky cough that went away (usually) by the next day.

Water logged.

Um, not really.

More like chlorine toxic. Yes, really!

Competitive swimming is the only sport that requires chemical exposure hazmat gear in the form of protective goggles. Think about it!

It isn’t just with kids either. But kids get a larger dose of most toxins, including chlorine because the ratio of exposure amount to body and lung size. Furthermore, with many environmental health insults, we are finding that exposure can lead to problems that don’t surface until years later.

Just the other day there was an AP report of a Wisconsin pool with high levels of chlorine that sent a number of children to the hospital with respiratory symptoms.

But, I’d like to point out that the Wisconsin pool case is just an instance of more than the USUAL AMOUNT of chlorine. Not an unusual presence of chlorine. Most pools in the U.S. use chlorine to maintain sanitation.

It’s only partially the chlorine itself that is the problem. In actuality, the chlorine combines with human organic substances and ammonias to form more volatile and dangerous chlorine elements such as trihalomethane, chloroform and trichloramines. Studies have shown that swimmers actually have a significant inhalation exposure to toxic chlorine by-products and a higher incidence of asthma.

It is estimated that 20% of the population has asthma and 9 million children under the age of 14. And, since new inhalers, as of December 2008, will require CFC (chloroflourocarbon) free propellant, the cost of each inhaler has gone up substantially. This effectively eliminates generics. The profit in that alone will be about 1.2 billion dollars per year. It seems to me that any contribution to the problem by chlorine is worth considering.

But before we get our swim suits all knotted up in despair, I’d like to point out that there is an easy solution!

Ozone sanitization systems.

Ozone sanitization systems are now readily available for every situation, from the backyard spa or pool to the large community pool. And, they are relatively easy to install and reasonably priced.

The new uber cool pool for the Beijing olympics uses UV sanitation which vastly reduces the amount of chlorine used. You can check out a piece on the pool over at Inhabitat. Europe has been using non-chlorine technologies for years.

The choice is simple. Asthma, respiratory problems and possible carcinogen exposure - or changing out the chlorine system to ozone. Salt water is also an option.

I’ve got my pom-poms out here to cheer you on to get your local pools to switch over. And, your own backyard is under your own control.

Do It.

You won’t have to put up with green hair any more.

And you can breath easier.

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