Dewey Case of CMAHC to Aquatic Directors: Clear Water Can Still Kill

🎙️ Talking Pools Podcast – Part 1

Dewey Case of CMAHC to Aquatic Directors: Clear Water Can Still Kill

Guest: Dewey Case — Technical Director, Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code (CMAHC); Assistant Aquatic Superintendent, Williamson County Parks & Rec, Tennessee
Host: Natalie Hood (The Grit Game)
Episode Length: Part 1 of 2

Episode Overview

It’s Halloween on the Talking Pools Podcast, and between vegan pumpkin chili, light-up unicorn costumes, and a T-Rex suit, host Natalie Hood sits down with Dewey Case, one of the most respected names in the aquatics industry.

Dewey, who serves as Technical Director for CMAHC and helps oversee operations for Williamson County Parks & Rec, joins Natalie to bust some of the most persistent and dangerous myths in aquatics — from “saltwater pools don’t use chlorine” to “if it’s clear, it must be clean.”

This conversation is as entertaining as it is eye-opening, reminding Aquatic Directors, Operators, and Lifeguards that public health and safety depend on knowing the science behind the sparkle.

What You’ll Learn in Part 1

💧 Myth #1: Saltwater pools don’t use chlorine.
Wrong. Dewey explains why salt systems are chlorine generators — and why undersized or misapplied units can cost facilities thousands.

💧 Residential vs. Commercial Realities.
Not all chlorine generation systems are equal. Dewey shares the hard lessons from pools that went green — and what every HOA and facility manager needs to understand before upgrading.

💧 The Education Equation.
You can’t go to college for aquatics management, so training and curiosity are everything. Dewey outlines where to go — CPO, AFO, AquaTech, Genesis, WaterShape University, and industry conferences — and why Google Scholar might be your new best friend.

💧 Myth #2: Clear water means clean water.
Not even close. Dewey breaks down the unseen dangers of crystal-clear water — from Crypto and Naegleria fowleri (the brain-eating amoeba) to Shigella, E. coli, and Pseudomonas lurking in low-sanitizer environments.

💧 Testing Habits That Save Lives.
Whether you manage a commercial facility, HOA, or residential route, Dewey and Natalie stress one truth: testing frequency is everything. Regulations are minimums, not goals.

💧 The Operator’s Mindset.
Dewey and Natalie share real-world stories — from misinformed HOA technicians to hot tubs that double as Legionella incubators — and challenge every aquatic professional to dig deeper than the surface.

Quotable Moments

• “A salt water pool is a chlorine pool.” – Dewey Case
• “You can’t go to college for this — your best educational tool is your desire to know more.”
• “Clear water doesn’t always mean clean water. Sometimes, it just means invisible danger.”
• “Be curious. Test often. Protect the people who trust you with their swim.”

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:53

When my wife and I go somewhere and we want to get into a pool or you know lazy river or what have you, you know, I don't get in public spas. Right? There's one person who's file I'll get into, I don't get in public spas.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hey pool pros. Welcome to your midweek dive on the Talking Pools podcast. While Sarah's away making waves elsewhere, we've got a powerhouse stepping in. Natalie Hood from the Grit Game. Natalie's bringing her sharp insight and signature energy to Wednesdays as she sits down with top-level executives and industry changemakers from every corner of the pool and spa world. From big picture innovation to the real stories behind the brands. She's asking the questions that matter and getting the answers that inspire. So grab your test kit and tune in. Because when Natalie's on the mic, you know it's gonna be all grit, no fluff, and 100% talking pools.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

You know what time it is? Wednesday vibes on the talking pools, pocket.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Dewey Case, experienced aquatic professional and technical director for the Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code and Assistant Aquatic Superintendent for Williamson County Parks and Rex in Tennessee. How are you doing today, Dewey? Good, Natalie. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. You know, this this episode's gonna air uh next week after Halloween, but it's Halloween. Do you have any fun plans with your family today?

SPEAKER_04 2:59

We are planning on going to a little brew haha in the hood. My wife is making a, so we we're we're plant-based. My wife is making a vegan chili that we plan on shocking everyone with its flavor profile. Made with pumpkin. It's delicious. It's one of my favorite things that she makes.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

You're gonna have to have her send that recipe to me. I will not share it to the masses, but that sounds fantastic. Honestly, I'm that basic girl. Anything pumpkin, sign me up. My husband, not so much, but I'm here for it. I love that. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah, so it'll be fun. We're looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Oh, good. Yeah, we have uh we're gonna get the kids early today from school, bring them home, uh, feed them a good wholesome dinner, and then take them out where they can get sugar high.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

So, what what's the outfits for the kids?

SPEAKER_03 3:50

So our oldest Charlie, she's almost six. Can you believe it? She is going to be a unicorn. And what she doesn't know is that in the dark, her dress actually lights up. Yeah. And then our other daughter is going to be Pocahontas because that's that's her thing right now, every single morning. Mommy, can I watch Pocahontas? And I'm like, yes, baby, you can watch Pocahontas. So she's going full Pocahontas. My husband actually dressed up as someone from work. So he works downtown MEPS in Knoxville. He's a combat medic in the military. And I'll I'll have to we'll make sure that hit what he's wearing is posted because it's pretty funny. It's it's hilarious. And then I, and I I can say this because our images aren't going to go out till next week or this weekend. But have you ever seen those videos or just images of people where they dress up as like a T-Rex? Yeah. That is my costume. I am going as a bona fide T-Rex, and I cannot wait.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

That's great. Well, we don't have any costumes for our little Bruja Ha, but uh I've decided, you know, because I'm a man of a certain age at this point, I'm gonna go as a grumpy old man and just yell at all the kids, get off my lawn, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:01

I love it. You know, I feel like half the time I wake up and I drop the kids off so early at school, I show up as Adam Sandler. So I was like, can I just like go as Adam Sandler like slash part lifeguard? Like I'll rock the sweatpants and I'll wear the flip-flops. Like, come on, let's just do it.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Well, thank you for joining us today. So we are here to bust some myths. So there are a lot of myths in you know, commercial, residential, you know, Olympic-sized operations. And so I'm ready to dive into it if you are.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Make your voice heard. Join the council for the Model Aquatic Health Code. Lend your expertise to the map, science-based guidance from the CDC, and the only all-inclusive national pool code that addresses current aquatic issues. Learn more at cmac.org. That's cmahc.org.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Well, thank you for joining us today. So we are here to bust some myths. So there are a lot of myths in, you know, commercial, residential, you know, Olympic-sized operations. And so I'm ready to dive into it if you are. Yeah, let's continue that pond and let's get wet. Let's start with a salty one. So, from your experience, do salt water pools actually skip the chlorine?

SPEAKER_04 6:27

Absolutely not. You know, this is one of these things that just whenever I hear it, it just makes my head explode. And, you know, it's uh it's pool owners, they're not the experts, right? It's understandable when uh when pool owners believe that, right? Right. It's it's really a marketing thing, right? Because when you talk about saltwater pools, and everybody talks about saltwater pools, it's ubiquitous. It's a marketing thing to make people feel like they're not using chlorine. The technical name for these things are chlorine generators. When you have a chlorine generators, guys. It is a chlorine generator, right? So when we teach CPO classes, when we're speculing out equipment on the commercial side, we call them chlorine generators. And really, you know, you're making your own chlorine. You're just not having to add it manually as a direct form. So yeah, that's that's the myth makes my head explode every time I hear it. You know, to quote Rudy, a salt water pool is a chlorine pool.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Amen to that. Amen to that. All right. So it sounds like we'd busted that myth out.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Yeah. I want to add to that though, because not all chlorine generation systems are equal. Can you dive into that a little bit more? Yeah, I will. I've been around the block a long time. I've been doing this for three decades, over three decades now. And what I see a lot of is I'll see a pool company install a chlorine generation system on a pool. Right. And typically the backyard pools, your residential pools, yeah, it works fine because limited beta load, right? The salt cells can easily keep up. But a pool company will try to take the residential style cells and apply that to a commercial pool, and it doesn't work, right? They're not sized big enough. A lot of times they're sold, quote quote unquote, on its better, and the commercial pool has to dump in tons of cal hypo to keep up, or even worse, they wind up ripping out ten thousand dollars worth of work a year later because the pool is always green.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Right. Right. So it sounds like some of those people definitely need an operator on staff.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Yeah, operator on staff, but also, you know, we need our pool companies to really just kind of fine-tune that, right? And understand what's appropriate for that 200,000 gallon HOA pool that has a summer swim league every summer, right? Typical off-the-shelf residential products aren't going to work for.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Well, and from my experience too, HOAs are kind of like their own animal, right? I mean, you have commercial, you have residential, and then you have HOA. Whether or not that state or jurisdiction requires you to have an operator, requires someone to have education, training, what have you, I feel like the HOAs are kind of in their own, their own land, if you will, the HOA Lego land, right? They kind of do what they want, they build how they want. And so I guess from this, if someone had, you know, any questions about how do they, you know, really kind of advance their education, what would you recommend they do?

SPEAKER_04 9:56

You know, starting off with a a qualified operator course, CPO course, aqua tech, you know, there's some others out there, AFO, certified watershape operator, pool practical pool management plus. You know, that's the first place to start, right? Then, you know, the next place is maybe become a pool inspector to get a little bit extra information, right? Go through some of the various maintenance classes that they have, right? If you're a pool professional, make sure you're looked in with your distributor because distributors will have on-site training periodically that you can't get anywhere else. If you're wanting to know more, you've got to get out of your neighborhood and you've got to go to educational offerings like the uh AOAP annual conference, the World Aquatic Health Conference, the International Pool and Spa Expo, the Genesis offerings, the Watershake University offerings, right? The things that grit games, the grit game does with distributors, right? You got to go to those places. And ultimately, when we talk about education for the pool probe, the sad reality is all too often you're responsible for your own education.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

We're still people think that pools are this pool industry is so far advanced, and we are. There's lots of great info on water chemistry and cyanuric acid, how it relates to water chemistry and sanitation and filtration. And I mean, we have some really, really neat products out there. We're using ozone and UV and AOP. Yeah. But at the end of the day, your best educational tool is your desire to know more because we're still the Wild West. You can't go to college for this.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

One of the biggest tools I've that's personally benefited me is just Google Scholar. Right. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. So like there's a lot of hype around glass media, right? And we won't go into that. That could be its own myth on its own, I think. Yeah. Right. But um, you know, if you want to know more glass media, go to Google Scholar and Google it. You can see the available research on glass media. A lot of it's wastewater, right? But there's applicability to it. So, yeah, that'd be my biggest recommendation for education is get out, go to conferences, take as many class offerings as you can, uh, and learn, learn, learn, research, use your inquisitive mind.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Yeah, and just to add on to that, I I think a big thing is just because a jurisdiction or state doesn't require that doesn't mean that you should stop your educational growth. There's always new things coming up in the industry. There's new, you know, finds. And so the best thing that you can do is continue that education. And that's one thing, you know, I started out as a lifeguard swimming, then lifeguard water safety instructor. I did Zumba Aquatics. That's now, now it's out. I can't hide it anymore. Yes, I did Zumba Aquatics. But I will say one of the biggest things that really helped me grow was just doing those classes, going to those events, going to those counter days, those tabletops. You know, there's a lot of free education out there. And so I think that's one thing that, you know, a lot of employers or companies miss out on is they're not sending their team to really advance their education profile. They're not allowing and giving them those tools and resources to kind of continue to grow. And I think that's one thing, too, that I've kind of thought about in this industry is, you know, I was fortunate enough. I came into this industry as a swimmer. I stayed. I did not think that there was actually, you know, anything beyond the beyond in the in here. I didn't know about the CPO program. I didn't know about, you know, CMAC. And there's so many available resources. So with that, I think we've definitely blown this one out. I think this myth is false.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Absolutely, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Yep. Okay. Let's get into another myth that I, since I've gotten more in-depth into the education certification side, is clear water means it's clean water and it must be safe. Right? I mean, I've I've checked into my hotel, I see this gorgeous pool, the tile looks amazing, I can see the bottom of the pool. I can jump in, I can take my kids in. But is it really safe?

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Well doesn't necessarily mean that, right? Right. Um, I mean, yeah, at a esoteric level, you know, a clear pool, yeah, that's cleaner than a pool that's green, full of algae and all the hidden amoebas, right? But there's lots of stuff that exist in clean water, right? I mean, look in in our neck of the woods in Tennessee, right? We have all these really crystal clear streams. Yeah, if you drink out of it, you're gonna have screaming diarrhea for two weeks. You will. Yeah, and it's crystal clear water. So, yeah, it's clean, clear water does not always mean clean water, does not always mean healthy water, right? There are various contaminants and pathogens that can exist, right? One is crypto, right? We know that. If you have a crypto exposure just once and you get it cleaned up and you don't treat it, yeah, well, at one part per million, 7.5 pH, that crypto is there for two weeks. And it's highly infectious. It takes 10 oces or less to have an infective dose. And now you have scream and diarrhea for two weeks in a crystal clear water. The other thing, too, that we're really starting to pay attention to in the industry is neglioria phalaron. You may know this as the brain-eating amoeba.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Yep. It will exist in crystal clear water. It's one of those rare freakish things. There's like 164 cases over the last 50 years, 60 years. Uh, the fatality rate is over 99%.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Uh, I didn't realize it was that high.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

It's like a 99%, I forget the exact number, it's 99.4 or something fatality rate. We only have two known survivors. Oh my gosh. So what happens is neglieria, and again, we see this in clear water, right, gets up your nose, right? So the the the two cases that we know of in wreck water has been from splash pads. Crystal clear water buzzling, you know, bubbling up. Yeah. So neglea gets into this water, you get water shoved up your nose, the amoeba attaches to the nerve, goes up to the brain, and starts going munchy, munchy, munchy.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Pac-Man.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

Yeah. Yeah. And uh, so we've had two survivors, and I'm, you know, I want to be sensitive to those survivors and their families. So, you know, don't mistake this at insensitivity. But there comes a point to where sometimes death is the greater mercy. These are individuals that they will never get married, they will never have children, they will never have what we would consider a meaningful life because they are horribly, horribly brain damaged.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Oh, that's just that breaks my heart.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

Yeah. It's it's sad, right? Clear water. Right. Um, so yeah, there's definitely, and there's other things like Shigella, there's E. coli. Yeah, all of us can live in clear water. Um, you know, especially when you have low to zero sanitizer. Right, right. I'm not a test strip fan. Test strips are awful from a professional standpoint. Here's where I do recommend test strips. So if we have consumers listening to this, or even pool pros that go on vacations like we do, yeah. Test strips. And before you hit that water, dip it. If it doesn't come up with a residual, if it doesn't come up with a normal pH, um below seven eight, but definitely in a public pool below seven six, yeah, you know, then that's probably not gonna be the healthiest pool to get in with crystal clear water.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

I will say before I got heavily into this part of the industry, I would stay at a hotel or what have you, and I would dive into the pool. I'd sit in the hot tub. I'm like, this is fantastic. But as I've started to learn more, I've spoken to Roy Voor, you know, I've spoken to you, learned more about, you know, what it takes to be an operator and really diving into the nitty-gritty, if you will. I've learned so much that now we'll go to a hotel and my husband's like, wow, they have a great pool. They have a hot, awesome hot tub. Let's jump in, let's bring the girls. And I'm like, I'm just gonna grab my test kits that I brought that I travel with everywhere I go. Before, yes, I would definitely jump in. Now I'm like, let's just test it. And, you know, even here in Tennessee, you know, our kids go to the Y, they do swim lessons, I swim on the daily, but I've noticed that they'll post like the temperatures of the pool. They're like, oh, the lap pool's 89 degrees. No, it's not. It's it's probably closer to 68 degrees. Or they had the hot tub posted the other day at like 109, and I was just like, oh my gosh. And so that's just another reason why you need to get educated. And again, the state of Tennessee doesn't require, but I'm sitting there with the knowledge that I have, and I'm just looking at this board that they have posted that everyone can see when they walk in, and I'm just like, oh my gosh. And I'm sitting there and I'm talking to my husband while the kids are swimming, they're doing cute little things in the water. And I'm just like, can you believe this board? And I'm going on and on about what they posted, you know, the temperatures last time they checked the water. And my husband's like, shut up. Stop. It's fine. Our kids are fine. You tested the water today before they got in. Stop it. But I would absolutely agree with you. Just because it looks clean doesn't mean it's actually clean. Just because it looks clean doesn't mean it's actually clean.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Yeah, and at least my wife's the same way. We go and look somewhere, and you know, I start looking around at a pool, and she's like, Don't say anything, please. Please don't say anything.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

They don't they don't want you to say anything. Yeah, just hush. We're here to have fun, be quiet, enjoy, slip your test strip in and walk away.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Yeah. You know, the the keys to healthy water you know aren't that difficult. You know, it's know your stuff for one, stay on top of your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yes, test regularly. And keep track of what you're testing, you know, keep track of daily logs, keep that, not just for the health inspector if they they happen to to come in that day unexpectedly, but also I I think it really gives you a peace of mind.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

It does. It does. And that's not even for, you know, that's applicable to residential routes too, right? We've got a lot of commercial folks listening, right? If you're testing once or twice a day, you got gaps, right? Especially if you're halfway busy. You know, residential, you know, for a pool route, your best tool to maintain that pool and to serve your customers well is this basic tracking. Yeah. And it doesn't take long.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

No. No. I mean, what, 10, 15 minutes? You you do the test, you track it, and then you move on. I mean, I'll say at the HOA that we were at in Georgia, it was a wonderful location. I absolutely loved it. I still wish I would lived there. But I still love Tennessee, but I miss my Georgia home. But we had an HOA that had, I think like seven or eight different pools. It was really awesome. I loved it. So there were a lot of different opportunities to take the kids. I mean, they were having a hard day. Maybe we take them to like the splash pad and the, you know, the younger section. If they were having a better day and they, you know, they felt confident, we take them to the older, you know, the larger pools, right? But I remember I was seeing a service tech or an operator, and I was watching them test the pool, and I was looking. Where his arm length was in the pool. He had just like skimmed the surface. And I was like, this is gonna be a problem. And then my husband was like, okay, I'm gonna walk away. I'm not gonna watch you do what you're about to do. You're about to analyze everything that they do. And I said, I'm right. I am. I'm gonna watch them because my kids are in this pool. And, you know, they were going through the motions and they started adding chemicals. And I was just like, oh dear lord. And so I walked over to them and I was like, hey, you know, I, you know, I have some experience with pools and education. And I was like, Do you, you know, what's the pH? What's the chlorine at? How often do you test? And he was like, Oh, I only test once a week. And I said, Do you only test once a week? I said, look at all these bathers in here. You have a splash pad right here, you have a fun park right here, and then you have a regular pool here, and kids are going back and forth to all areas, plus adults, and you're only testing once a week. And I actually brought it up to the HOA and I said, Hey, you guys need to be testing a lot more than once a week. You need to be testing so many times per day. Again, we talk about this Lego Land HOA that people tend to live in. None of the, you know, we had a Facebook page, and here I come walking in in the Facebook page thread, and I add it in, they really should be testing this many times per day. And I'm concerned about their log sheets. And so many of the residents actually got upset with me because they're like, what you're doing here, you might shut down our pool. And I'm like, I'm not trying to shut down the pool, but I'm trying to make it to where it's safe, not just, you know, for us to get in, but for our kids. I was absolutely shocked. And again, they one thing they said, well, the water looks clean. And I'm like, it can look clean all day, but that doesn't make it clean. I mean, like you said, take a cup of water out of the uh a local running stream or river. If you haven't boiled it, you're probably going to be heading to that bathroom fairly quickly.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

Well, and there was a, I don't have it in front of me. This is an off-the-cuff thing, but there was a bit of research that came out, I think 2024, maybe late 23, where it was correlating swimmer's ear in the Argus. Oh. Right. So clean, you know, unhealthy water doesn't have to mean screaming diarrhea and brain rot, right? Something as simple as pseudonomas that build up on biofilm in the piping that comes from low sanitizer levels. Right. And the the article correlated to X number of ER visits, and through the magic of epidemiology, they correlate it to backyard swimming pools, residential pools. And this HOA being tested once a week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

So water, you know, recreational water illnesses doesn't have to mean, you know, this gross thing or this horrible life-threatening outbreak. It could simply be this HOA had 10 kids that week that went to the ER for swimmer's ear. Right. So yeah. I want to add one more thing on the clean water. Clear water doesn't mean healthy water. Spas. Spas. Yep. You can have a still clear spa, but the moment you turn it on, you get the phone build up, right? That's the Legionella factory. You're entering at your own risk at that point.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Agree. And I think there's so many homeowners that, you know, I would like to think a lot of them do the due diligence. They understand, okay, I have a pool and a spa in my backyard or, you know, an above ground spa. I probably should understand what this means. But that I don't feel like that's really the case. And, you know, for me, if I if we had, you know, a spa in our backyard, my kids saw foaming, they'd be like, ooh, bubbles. And the, you know, the parents might be like, oh yeah, go play in the bubbles. Let me get like 10, 15 minutes of time to like, you know, finish prepping dinner. But you're absolutely right. It, I mean, it's scary, the lack of knowledge, commercial, residential, and HOAs. So I definitely feel like we've blown this one out of the water. Clean water is clearly not clean water. It doesn't mean it's safe. Make sure you're, you know, you're you're testing, you're you're comfortable with the facility. And I mean, quite frankly, too, I have no shame in going to the front desk and saying, can I see your logs? Yeah. When was the last time this was tested? How often is this service? Do you have an operator on staff? I have no shame doing that. My husband will tend to walk away when I do that. He's like, oh, there goes Natalie. I'm just going to take the kids over here. But I think it's important to know what you're going to be getting into before you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

No, absolutely. And that's, you know, as consumers, because we're consumers too, right? That's important for us. I don't care what they think. All I care about as a consumer when I go somewhere, you know, when I put on my my pool pro hat, I worry about health and safety. But when my wife and I go somewhere and we want to get into a pool or, you know, Lazy River or what have you, you know, I don't get in public spas. Right? There's one person who spa I'll get into. I don't get in public spas.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

We're not done yet. Join us next Wednesday for part two of this exciting episode with the Kmox Dewey case and the grit games Natalie Hood, and find out why Dewey refuses to set foot in a public spa. All right here on the Talking Pools podcast.