trinity bellwoods pool

'Brown' and 'cloudy' pool in Toronto raises concern among community residents

Questionable photos of an indoor pool in Toronto described as "brown" and "cloudy" caused quite a stir this week, with local residents reaching out to the City, community centre, and their local councillor in hopes of rectifying the situation. 

The pictures, uploaded to Reddit by a community member, show the murky kid's pool at Trinity Community Recreation Centre, located within Trinity Bellwoods Park. 

"Community centre staff have been asking the city for months to change the water filters," the post reads, which has already garnered over 150 comments and over 1,000 upvotes. 

Several former city aquatic staff and lifeguards took to the thread to discuss the possible causes behind the off-putting water. 

"Former city lifeguard here. I'd suggest emailing 311 as well as copying the city councillor for this ward. The city is extremely stingy with its maintenance budget and getting management to believe that something is an issue is impossible unless the public also complains. I've literally walked around a green pool with a facility supervisor and they told me it was fine," one user wrote. 

Brown cloudy water at Trinity Bellwoods kids pool. Community centre staff have been asking the city for months to change the water filters.
byu/graphophonic intoronto

The original poster claims they spoke to lifeguards at the pool, who deemed it safe and stressed that the water tests looked "okay," although they allegedly "admitted that they wouldn't go in themselves" unless there was an emergency. 

Another person suggested that the maintenance staff might've been testing for chlorine and pH levels, with the discolouration just being a build-up of particulate due to the filters. 

One Reddit user said they contacted the local city councillor's office, who told them that they would be reaching out to Parks, Forestry, and Recreation staff and the community centre to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. 

"I've been both a public sector and a private sector lifeguard in towns a bit east of there and it normally just took a quick chat with the maintenance folks to get something like this sorted out in the extremely unlikely event that I noticed it before they had already noticed and sorted it," one comment reads. 

"That may be chemically correct but it's f*cking filthy. I will now be following up with the city." 

In a statement to blogTO, the City confirmed that staff have been actively working to repair the cartridge filter system for the tot pool at the community centre since the middle of May. 

"While staff were working to repair the filter system, it became evident that a new filter system was required," the statement reads. 

"The new sand filters arrived on Friday and staff are working with plumbers for a quick removal of the old filters and the installation of the new sand filters."

Lead photo by

u/graphophonic

u/graphophonic


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