Idiot of the Week; Someone broke a glass jar at a Public Pool: $15,000 to Clean it

An unknown person at a public pool in Needham, Massachusetts brought a glass jar of salsa to a public pool to enjoy with their chips... and glass is forbidden around the pool to prevent accidents, and pool shutdowns. But this week's idiot (who is unknown) brought it anyway, and apparently dropped it... tossing broken glass in the pool. The pool was closed for days and the cost to drain it was astronomical. Here's the story.

(Photo: Town workers prepare for clean up at the lap pool at Rosemary Recreation Complex/ Credit: Needham Observer)

How a jar of salsa led to a costly pool cleanup 

Draining, cleaning, and refilling the pool could cost the town somewhere in the vicinity of $15,000 to $20,000, according to the Needham Observer.

  Abby Patkin, Boston. com ; July 18, 2024

Needham officials were forced to close and drain a popular lap pool this week after a jar of salsa reportedly shattered poolside, sending glass shards into the water.

The incident happened July 14, shuttering the lap pool at the Rosemary Recreation Complex for several days amid an ongoing heat wave, according to the town’s Park and Recreation department. In a post on Facebook, Park and Recreation Director Stacey Mulroy said the pool needed to be drained and cleaned, chemically rebalanced, and tested for bacteria before it could reopen to the public.

“All these steps take some time,” Mulroy wrote on Sunday. “We are unsure of the exact number of days it will take us to reopen the pool.” In the meantime, some water activities continued as scheduled in the complex’s separate family pool, according to the post.

“As a reminder — there is absolutely NO GLASS of any kind allowed anywhere at the Rosemary Pools,” Mulroy wrote. “Today’s incident was avoidable and unfortunate.”

According to local news site the Needham Observer, the culprit was a broken jar of salsa, and the pool cleanup could cost the town somewhere in the vicinity of $15,000 to $20,000 once staff labor, overtime, and pool chemicals are factored in. 

Mulroy told the Observer the clear glass shards can float undetected in the water, posing a risk to swimmers and necessitating a heavy duty cleanup. “They can float into somebody’s eye or somebody’s mouth or into their lungs if they ingest shards of glass,” Mulroy told the news outlet. “That is a more concerning situation, which is why we go through this very specific procedure.”

The 140-member Needham Sharks summer swim team uses the Rosemary lap pool for its practices and meets, and head coach Kate Curtin scrambled to adjust their schedule and find alternative places to practice.