All wet: How to contend with a dried-out swim season
The first weekday after July 4 is when New York’s fabulous free-swimming season typically commences at 7 a.m. in 15 large outdoor pools across all five boroughs with the adult lap swim Early Bird program. Learn to Swim lessons for kids and adults begin at 8 a.m. Senior Splash starts after that and ends before open swim at 11 a.m. When open swim ends at 7 p.m., Night Owl laps start at 13 pools, along with adult lessons and aerobics. The long day ends at 8:30 p.m.
But not this year, because due to a national lifeguard shortage, laps, lessons and senior hours have been canceled. The last time the programs were held, in 2019, lap attendance was 53,046 and 53,734 took lessons; this year, it will be zero.
The normal complement of 1,500 lifeguards for 14 miles of beaches, 36 main pools (two of the main pools are closed for repair this summer) and 17 mini pools is now only 766. Some mini pools have failed to open even once since the season began last Tuesday. We visited one yesterday where the pH is at 7.8 and chlorine at 3 ppm (both good readings), but there have been no lifeguards and no swimming. Main pool capacity has been cut and portions of many pools roped off, leading to long lines. Swimming has been split into five sessions instead of the normal two.
How to stretch fewer lifeguards further without compromising safety? For starters, Mayor Adams and Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue should see if the state Health Department can reduce too-onerous staffing requirements to align them with other states. While lifeguard union boss Peter Stein did not cause the shortage, he’s an impediment to finding solutions. His grip over training and deployment must be broken. He’s a city employee with the title of chief lifeguard who made $179,667 last year. Yet at age 77, could he still pass the swim test? Should he even still have a job, having refused to talk to Department of Investigation probers?
We’ll have more to say as the summer proceeds.
