How safe are the swimming pools in St. Paul? They’re probably safe enough, but the Minnesota Department of Health is still plenty annoyed that the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections (DSI) hasn’t stayed up to date with pool inspections. In some cases, those inspections fell to interns.
In the case of the Kellogg Square Apartments in downtown St. Paul, a pool went uninspected for more than three years past the scheduled inspection date. The median “past due” date was 291 days. In some cases, according to the Department of Health, interns handled inspections, even though the job is supposed to fall to certified employees.
The to-and-fro over DSI pool inspections plays into a larger debacle with the state. The Department of Health plans to take restaurant, grocery, pool, hotel and other business inspections away from the city on or about next Tuesday, July 9, according to this report.
Here’s more on pools from an evaluation report issued by the Department of Health within the past year:
For the random sample 74% of the inspections are overdue with a median of 291 days past due. The longest number of days overdue is 1103 (3.02 years) for the Kellogg Square
Apartments which was not inspected from March 13, 2008
until March 20, 2012. Carlton Lofts-Spa Pool was on the
AmansdaFolderMDH_FG_6_1_12 list of establishments that
was provided to MDH, however the only inspection report
that was provided dated July 9, 2010 indicates that the spa
pool license has not been approved yet. Where is the
documentation that indicates that the pool was approved for
use and why haven’t there been any further inspections?
Note: Several swimming pools are identified as medium or
low risk establishments on the
StPaul_Estab_RiskLevels_5_22_12 document.
For example: (Note: These are just a few examples to assist
the board in improving upon this standard and are not an allinclusive list.)
Park Pointe Apartments is designated as low risk
Bally’s Total Fitness is designated as low risk
Humboldt Senior High is designated as medium risk
Jewish Community Center is designated as medium
risk
Best Western Kelly Inn is designated as medium risk
The University Club of St. Paul is designated as
medium risk
Como Town Splash Zone spray deck pool is
designated as medium risk
Minnesota Statutes 157.20 requires establishments with a
swimming pool to be designated as high risk and inspected at
least once every 365 days. If the AMANDA system assigns