from the what's-green-and-smells-of-farts? dept.
After a week of trying to part with green tides in two outdoor swimming pools, Olympic officials over the weekend wrung out a fresh mea culpa and yet another explanation—neither of which were comforting.
According to officials, a local pool-maintenance worker mistakenly added 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide to the waters on August 5, which partially neutralized the chlorine used for disinfection. With chlorine disarmed, the officials said that "organic compounds"—i.e. algae and other microbes—were able to grow and turn the water a murky green in the subsequent days. The revelation appears to contradict officials' previous assurances that despite the emerald hue, which first appeared Tuesday, the waters were safe.
"Of course it's an embarrassment," Gustavo Nascimento, director of venue management for the Rio Olympics, told The New York Times . "We are hosting the Olympic Games, and athletes are here, so water is going to be an issue. We should have been better in fixing it quickly. We learned painful lessons the hard way."
Hydrogen peroxide is sometimes used in pools—often to de-chlorinate them. Basically, the chemical, a common household disinfectant, is a weak acid that reacts with chlorine and chlorine-containing compounds to release oxygen and form other chlorine-containing compounds. Those may not be good at disinfecting pools, but they still may be picked up by monitoring systems.
On Saturday, officials started draining and refilling one of the affected pools—the one used for synchronized swimming, a sport that requires underwater visibility. The 3,725,000-liter pool was refilled with water from a clean practice pool nearby. The diving pool, the first to turn green, is being filtered and treated to clean the waters.
By the end of last week, athletes and media reported that the waters had begun to irritate eyes and smell like farts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:34AM
When told about this on NPR's quiz show about the week's news "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", panelist comedian Paula Poundstone said it was probably that chemical they put in swimming pools to indicate the presence of urine.
(Michael Phelps has admitted that he pees in the pool.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:39AM
Send the Portland water police.
http://time.com/66459/portland-reservoir-pee/ [time.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:57AM
Going by what I read at the h2o2.com link, urine would slow down the dechlorination reaction.
Nitrogen-containing compounds such as ammonia, amines and proteins are usually present in municipal wastewater. Free available chlorine reacts readily with these materials to form chloramines in which the chlorine is described as combined available chlorine. The available chlorine remaining after disinfection of municipal wastewaters is usually present in the combined form.
[...]
Significantly, hydrogen peroxide reacts very slowly with combined available chlorine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:55AM
Surely they could have just asked Michael Phelps if he was in the pool recently without needing to resort to chemicals!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @09:19AM
Actually, what made things green, ugly and unsafe was the Brazilain water. We take our clean and safe water for granted (except our lead laden friends in Flint, Michigan).
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:28PM
panelist comedian Paula Poundstone said it was probably that chemical they put in swimming pools to indicate the presence of urine.
That's an urban legend.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:29PM
Is the urban legend that Paula Poundstone is a comedian? I'm trying to figure out why the blockquote used bold font...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:53PM
The urine-detecting chemical part is the urban legend. I'm pointing out it's maybe not the wisest thing to take anything a comedian says on TV at face value.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:58PM
I had grown so comfortable with the status of urine detecting chemicals that it didn't occur to me that people may still believe in them. I had forgotten the lesson of xkcd 1053 [xkcd.com].
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:35AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:37AM
If you are an elite swimmer prone to flatulence at inopportune moments, chances are nobody in Rio will tweet nasty about you.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:39AM
The Truth never stopped a Tweet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:45AM
I think it's time they move towards a model of regional hosts.
A few cities like London, Beijing, and Los Angeles have shown that they can pull off being a host in stride.
When it's not their turn, the Olympics should be hosted by a region (such as South America), where the primary city provides the stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies, which can also be used for track and field and some other events. All the Olympians will show up for those two ceremonies and can be put up at local hotels. So the world gets its nice television moment.
The other events can be scattered throughout the region, with backup plans for each to mitigate the inevitable screwups, acts of God, etc. There's no reason to settle for makeshift facilities or clearly contaminated venues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:58AM
Stop slaughtering the cash cow, you dirty rotten terrorist.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:24AM
I think it's time we stopped letting 2nd world nations host games.
The games themselves are a huge money pit with a typical games costing billions more to host than they get back in sponsorship and tourism. Brazil cut back substantially on police as a direct result of needing to find funds to pay for the games. And that's before the shoddy work became an issue. Rio itself is a real basket case where there are areas that are quite nice and areas where there's massive poverty and violence.
How many police, meals and classes could they have bought with the money they wasted on this boondoggle of a games? They couldn't have solved all their problems with it, but they could have positively impacted many lives with that money.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:52AM
You know the 2nd world means Communist Eastern Bloc, right? Of course you don't.
You want 3rd world. Not allied with the United States or the Soviet Union.
Maybe you're more familiar with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds from the Babylon 5 Advisory Council than you are with the real world? Abbai, Drazi, Gaim, pak'ma'ra, the minor powers. Those are the guys you're thinking of.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:57PM
I'm aware of what that term meant 20 years ago. It's been decades since the break up of the USSR and applying the term in that fashion no longer makes any sense. Some of those countries have advanced quite a bit and some haven't. Not to mention the fact that with only the US standing, the whole idea of evaluating based upon which countries were and weren't allied decades ago is nonsensical.
India and Brazil are pretty similar in terms of development, but one was located in a region near one of the competing super powers and the other wasn't. I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything that's going on today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:05PM
In other words, "no, I didn't know that, but let me try to pathetically save face by claiming I'm still right."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:52AM
Not really, it's just that those of us that have been outside of our parent's basement are aware that those classifications are no longer meaningful. You've got countries like Brazil that have done a huge amount of developing to the point where they're similar to countries like India and China. And you've got countries like Afghanistan that would be fortunate to be considered 3rd world. Even by 3rd world standards they've got issues.
What happens in 50 years when the 2nd world nations are as developed as the first world nations?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:57PM
You idea has merits, but I see three challenges to overcome for this model.
1) The "tragedy of the commons" type idea. When a single city/nation has responsibility, all the glory and all the shame falls upon them. Rio (and London, Beijing, and everywhere else) had a large amount of pressure to succeed. This raises the chances that they'll actually put forward the resources to make the games successful. In contrast, a shared project usually results in less effort from all involved. If Bumpkinville was only hosting the 400 meter dash, it would be easy for them to cut too many corners and end up with a terrible venue. People will notice Rio for "the 2016 Olympics were terrible," but short of murder who would say "we should avoid Bumpkinville, the 2020 Olympics were all good except for that long jump venue."
2) Logistics becomes much harder. It is definitely the case for the reporters and TV broadcasters, who would need to disperse to a much larger area to cover it all. It could also be a problem for certain athletes who compete in different events. Plus figuring out who is housed where, how to travel between venues, and everything else. The Olympics are already hard enough with events scattered all around a city (plus a few "elsewhere"). If everything was "elsewhere" then the existing limited economies of scale all vanish.
3) One could cynically suggest that the Olympic Committee just want money. The bribes and under the table agreements would be harder to pull off, and moreover they may receive less money (see point 1 above about communal items).
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:24AM
the smell comes from algae and in large amounts it smells like death. [npr.org]
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Wednesday August 17 2016, @04:00AM
The IOOC is rife with corruption where picking the venue is concerned. I say cancel the damn games until the world can get together to pick a permanent location. If we can't even manage to do that, there is no point in trying to fix all the other problems that have been going on for decades (performance enhancing drugs, blatant violations of age restrictions etc). After this fiasco and the horrible coverage by NBC, I just don't give a damn anymore.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @04:08AM
Are you missing an enzyme, friend? [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:45AM
I'm not your friend, buddy.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:58AM
I'm not your buddy, friend!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @09:17AM
I'm not your friend, pal!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:35AM
I'm not your pal, mate!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @05:30AM
and not a drop to swim in.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 17 2016, @05:32AM
The water looks nice and blue now. It's been fixed. It's unfortunate that it happened, but let's face it, it was the kind of screw-up that could have happened any where at any time. Nobody got sick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @07:46AM
anywhere at any time? could you please list the other places where it happened, for an international event of similar magnitude?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday August 17 2016, @08:37AM
Actually, there were cases of gastro-enteritis going around, but nobody could pin it on any one specific cause. It may have nothing to do with the water in the diving pool, but the sea is not clean according to quite a bit of media reporting.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:09PM
The part I'm not ok with is the "We don't know why the water is green, but go ahead and dive in it anyway!"
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 17 2016, @04:40PM
That was the IOC, not the host.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:50AM
So H2O and and H2O2 and CL = HCI
muummmm fun....
(Score: 3, Informative) by EvilSS on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:07PM
Not in this case. They don't use elemental chlorine in pools, otherwise you would get HCl from it coming in contact with H20, and that would be useless for trying to keep a pool sanitary while at the same time not melting the swimmers. The reactions usually leave some non-oxidizing chlorine salt and O2. For household bleach, for example, you get salt water and O2(g). Great way to clean up spilled bleach or get rid of the bleach smell if you have been using bleach and got some on your hands.
(Score: 1) by Deeo Kain on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:37AM
Anything to get swimmers swim faster!