Legal Cases Involving Pool Chemicals

This episode explores the complexities of pool chemistry, legal considerations, industry trends, and the importance of understanding over following instructions blindly. Rudy Stankowitz shares insights on how industry control, product formulation disputes, and safety regulations impact pool professionals and consumers.

Keywords

pool chemistry, pool industry, pool safety, chemical regulation, pool maintenance, pool education, legal cases, industry trends

Key Topics

• Pool chemistry complexities and safety
• Legal cases involving pool chemicals
• Industry trends towards simplification and control

Guest Name

Rudy Stankowitz

Sound Bites

• "Follow the label, protect yourself legally."
• "Chemistry doesn't forgive mistakes."
• "Your knowledge is your best defense."

Chapters

00:00
Understanding Label Instructions in Pool Care

10:50
The Importance of Testing Over Following Rules

14:23
Legal Implications of Chemical Labels

27:48
Industry Trends: Simplifying Pool Care

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:53

That said, and this is not contradictory, although it may sound so, read the label instructions. Following the label instructions is the only way to cover your ass. If something goes wrong and you follow the label instructions, you are a heck of a lot better off than if you had not.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Because again, that label is legally protected. It's sound. Anything outside of that? Not so much.

SPEAKER_05 1:34

Hello, pool people. Welcome to Friday. Again, it is weekend eve. I hope your week has been fan fucking tabulous, and I hope your weekend is even better. Good topic to start off the morning with. Something to think about. We know sodium bromide is under the gun as of recent. Not allowed in outdoor pool use. Look at the label. If you have any of those sodium bromide products, take a look. This was required to be on the label instructions, I think two years now, for two years. I know United Chemical is fighting this with the EPA, but right now the EPA is saying you're not providing us enough proof that this will not cause harmful disinfection byproducts. How many of you are still using it in pools? Don't tell me. Don't. I don't want to know. Because we need to follow the label instructions to cover our asses. If anything ever goes awry, that's going to be the one thing that can help you. You've followed the label instructions. But if you're like everybody else in the industry who's been doing this long enough, you've already figured out that the label is not written for the pool. And I don't mean that as an insult. I mean that as a hot take. I mean it is a fact. Because if you've ever stood there with a bucket in one hand and a test kit in the other and thought to yourself, why doesn't this all line up? That's not confusion. That's awareness. Because the label says add this much and add it this often. And your water is telling you that doesn't make sense. That moment right there, that's where everything changes. That's where you decide, are you going to follow the instructions? Or are you going to understand what you're doing? Because it's not necessarily the same thing. Following the instructions feels safe. Understanding chemistry feels uncertain. But here's the truth. The label is designed to protect the company. Understanding chemistry protects the pool. And once you see that difference, you can't unsee that. Let's start with Alan for a couple of reasons. One, because the Mondays Down Under team already had a discussion on this, and that's where this is stemming from. We can look at this as being maybe a sequel to their conversation on aluminum sulfate. Although they say it wrong, the fuck is an aluminium.

SPEAKER_09 4:12

Liquid clarifier makes the particles in the water coagulate. So it's a chulating agent and chillating agent, depending on how people pronounce that word, and gathers things together, makes them denser and easier to catch. And then the alum sulfate actually makes the sand media, the glass media, in a in a media filter, puts that layer on the top of the media and makes it a better catcher. So if you make something easier to catch and you make your filter a better catcher, the two are a match made in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah. It's Monday. The cruising is gone. Got a call from a customer. Who's got some mixture? Sounds like a mixture. I'm walking up to the pool like a freak joke. Stop water quacks wimming round. Got the jaws up the ride, box, jellyfish things, great whites taking a ride in the tight pants. Ain't no joke, it's getting wild. I'm the one with the scoop, ain't no ordinary. Hedgehog in the pool, gotta get it away. Ozzy's leeing me, and next to key, we flare talking pools, eyes and ends, dead.

SPEAKER_09 5:32

And I've talked about this on the podcast before, how we used this during the fire cleanups when we had we were surrounded by bushfires, worked exceptionally well, and I it was always my go-to. So great sell in the shop. Ease an easy sell in the shop and gave the customers really effective results.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

I wanted to take a quick minute here just to remind everybody that the 2026 Talking Pools Podcast Mentor of the Year registration, I'm gonna call it, is officially open. Why registration? Because this isn't a contest. We're recognizing merit. We're recognizing the people who gave back, and in a special way, they gave back in helping others in the industry get ahead and ultimately making the industry better because of their actions. So if there is somebody that helped you that you think is pretty badass and deserves a championship belt for the help, the assistance, the guidance that they gave you, go to mentoraward.com. We just need you to tell us who it is. There's not going to be any voting. People can't self-nominate. There's no family members that can nominate, can only be nominated by a optional, by a pool professional. Mentoraward.com. We will go then through, this ends May 15th. I need the names by May 15th, so we got less than a month left. Get your mentor's name to me at mentoraward.com. We will then heavily scrutinize the contributions these folks have made to the industry. And out of the list of names that we pick up, the collection of giants in this industry will whittle it down to 10, the top 10. And the top 10 will be celebrated because being in the top 10 is pretty badass all in itself. And out of that top 10, we will scrutinize it further. And I will again do a surprise. Doorstep reveal, I'm talking Ed McMahon type stuff here, with the championship belt. And the sponsors, if they'd like to join me, Chris Galvin, Blu-ray XL, title sponsor this year, title sponsor last year, and we have Revved Up Apparel.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

They've come on again as a silver level sponsor. Kudos to both of you. Props, recognition. You guys did awesome.

SPEAKER_05 8:14

You guys are awesome. And what an awesome way to show that you recognize the importance of mentorship in this industry by supporting the recognition of mentors in the industry. Couldn't get any better than that. Anyway, go to mentoraward.com. Just do it. Do it now. Mentoraward.com.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Just need you to tell me who it is. Who helped you? That's it.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

I've been getting Service Industry News since I first stepped into this business, and every time it landed, I did the same thing. Flip straight to the horror file. The weird installs, the absurd finds, the stuff only pool pros ever see. Then I'd go back and read the articles. Service Industry News is a twice-monthly trade publication for pool and spa service text, 24 issues a year, emailed free to over 10,000 texts and available on their app. Every issue covers nationwide industry news and real technical content you actually will use. Get your free subscription at serviceindustry news.net. Again, that's serviceindustrynews.net. Do it now. Let's start with Alan for a couple of reasons. One, because the Mondays Down Under team already had a discussion on this, and that's where this is stemming from. We can look at this as being maybe a sequel to their conversation on aluminum sulfate, where they questioned the label instructions as far as the methods of dosing is concerned. So if you want to listen to that episode, it's not this past Monday, it's the one before. It's called Flock Around and Find Out. Check that one out. They bring up a lot of great points about the label. If you read the label on a lot of product, a lot of aluminum sulfate products by many different manufacturers, it tells you to adjust your pH to 7.8 or higher. Sounds official. Sounds like that's the right move. And if you ask the industry, if you ask the pool people who have used this, many of them are going to tell you, yeah, the pH needs to be high in order for this to work. But that's simply not the case. It's not a marketing thing. It's not something that comes up in pool forums. It's about actual water treatment knowledge. And what you find here is simple. Alum actually works better at a lower pH. Not extremely low, but lower than most pool labels tell you. So now you've got a conflict. 7.2 is a good place to be. Science tells you that. Actually, the science tells you 6.5 to 7.0 is the best place to be. But the label says something entirely different. So which one is wrong? Neither. They're solving different problems. The science is trying to get maximum clarity, maximum efficiency, fast settling. The label is trying to avoid surface damage, aggressive water, and customer complaints. Because when you add alum, you're not just clearing the water, you're also changing the chemistry. You're lowering the pH, sometimes quickly. And if that drop is not controlled, you can damage the pool. So the label moves the starting point higher. Not because it works better, it doesn't. At a higher pH, it takes more product and the longer amount of time to flock that pool properly. The reason the label states 7.8 or higher is because it's safer just in case something goes wrong. Somebody forgets to readjust the pH following the dose, then yeah, that's a problem. So they start you at 7.8, even though it will take more product in a longer amount of time because they consider that to be less risky. The label's not always designed for the best result. It's designed for the safest outcome. Now let's talk about calcium hypochlorite, because I don't dare call it a bucket of shock. I don't dare call it a bucket of shock. Pope the bear, you know who I'm talking about. So you grab a bucket of Calhypo, the label states one pound per 10,000 gallons once a week. Like your pool is on a schedule, like your pool checks the calendar. That's not chemistry. Chemistry doesn't run on time, it runs on conditions. Think about your pools. Some get used all weekend, some sit untouched, some bake in the sun, some stay in the shade. So why would they all need the same dose on that same day every week? You have the ability to test, to see when your pool needs to be shot. You take your comparator, your test block, you fill it with water up to the line, you add five drops of DPD1, followed by five drops of DPD two, invert it a couple of times, hold it to the light of the northern horizon, and match the color. That combination of DPD1 and DPD two gives you your free chlorine reading. Now, if you take your third yellow bottle, DPD number three, this is very easy to find in your test kit because it's the one that's still full. Take that and add five drops of that to the solution that already contains DPD one and two, convert and hold that to the lights of the northern horizon. Now we're looking to see if the color got darker. If that color got darker, if your total chlorine is higher than your free chlorine level, that means you have a combined chlorine level. And that is when you need to shock the pool. We superchlorinate to achieve breakpoint. There's all the words for you. So we shocked the pool. Is that once a week? Maybe. Depends on the pool. Is it once every two weeks? Once a month? Maybe it's more than once a week. I would test my total chlorine as often as I would test my free chlorine. Some busy commercial pools, you might see that it's more than once a week. I can tell you this. When I had my service company, I serviced mostly commercial pools, and the majority of those were student housing facilities. So those pools could be rough. And I promise you, if you have a horror story, I can go head to head on anything you got. Because those kids did some wack-a-doo shit to them bulls. But here's the thing. Using the test kit, using the test results, I determined when to shock my pool. I didn't just go with a rule of thumb, like it says on the bucket, one pound per 10,000 gallons once a week. And what I found was that my pools, again, at student housing facilities, during season, maybe would need to be shocked once a month. One time per month. Then downtime, because it's a year-round season here in northern Florida, but really not warm enough to swim. Then November through March, maybe once, if at all. So on average, I had to shock my pools at student housing facilities seven times a year. If I had followed the bucket instructions, I would have shocked my pools 45 times a year more than was necessary. That's insane. Now your residential pools. I would venture to guess if you actually went by the test results, you would see that you have some pools on your route that you only need to shock once a year. I bet you would. There may be some that are once a week. Again, it really just depends on the pool and it depends on the usage. Every pool is different. We can't go with a cookie cutter program and expect it to work in every case scenario because there are no fucking cookie cutter pools and there is no cookie cutter chemistry. You are the doctor, bedside with the patient. It's your job to determine what that patient needs. Personalized care, because that pool is an individual. Now, if you want to shock your pools once a week because you use that as a preventative method, and that's your protocol of care, that's awesome. Do that. I'm not telling you that you have to change, but if you're shocking your pools once a week because you think that's what it needs, we're better than that. You have a test. Remember, DPD one and two, free chlorine, hold it up, match the color. DPD number three, we add five drops of that to that same solution. Invert it, hold it up, match the colors. If the color got darker, that's when you need to superchlorinate to achieve breakpoint, regardless. Anyway, you knew that, I'm sure. You've seen it. There are just pools that don't need it. And then again, pull cleost up. And then there are pools that need more. Pools change week to week. Some of them don't. So what's the label doing? It's giving you a just in case dose. And just in case means more than necessary more often than necessary. And when you follow that long enough, the calcium level builds, balance drifts, costs go up. Think of that. Just looking at my just looking at my commercial pools alone. If I had shocked those pools 45 times a year more than was necessary, that's a part-time employee at least. Could be a down payment on a truck, depending on how large your company is, could be a truck. All that waste from doing exactly what you were told. So why does the label say that? Here's the thing. It has to work for everyone. It has to work for the best pool, it has to work for the worst pool, it has to work for the neglected pool, the pool nobody tested, the pool with the lawn that's three feet high. It has to work even when nobody knows what they're doing. So it overshoots on purpose. That's the second realization. This label is built for the worst case scenario, not your specific situation. And if you don't see it, you're gonna miss where everything is heading. We've got multiple stories this month, different companies, different angles, different situations, but they all point to the same thing. The industry is trying to simplify pool care because it cannot guarantee people understand it. And that right there, that's where it gets kind of interesting. So, first, Salinas draws a line in the sand. That's the big one. Salinas just made a move. Starting July 1st, 2026, they are restricting the sale of several major brands: Aquasil, Pool Life, GLB, Christine Blue. They're restricting the sale on third-party marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. Only a small group of authorized sellers will be allowed to sell those products online going forward. And if you're currently buying product to flip online, they're telling you, stop immediately. Now, let's slow that down because this is not just about online sales. This is about control. Because what's been happening? Products leave distribution and end up everywhere. Amazon listings, random sellers, people with no training, no understanding, selling pool chemicals. And Salinas looked at this and said, we're losing control of our own product. And they're right. Because once a product leaves trained hands and lands in the hands of someone who doesn't understand it, everything changes. The real problem behind this? Because now the only thing explaining that product is the label. And the label? The label's not built to teach, it's built to protect. It's designed to be simple, safe, repeatable, not precise, not adaptive, not based on real-world conditions. So now you've got untrained sellers, uninformed buyers, the label doing all the explaining. That's a problem. And Salinas is stepping in to fix it. In other news, Pool Corps is pushing harder into what they're calling system-based chemical programs, which sounds great until you think about what that actually means. Instead of teaching people how to read water, they're giving them a system, a routine, a structure. Do this, then this, then that, then this. Now, don't get me wrong, that works. It absolutely works. But here's the catch. It works until it doesn't. Because water doesn't follow systems, it follows conditions. Temperature changes it, usage changes it, weather changes it. So a fixed system, that's just a more organized guess. So we have Salinas restricting who can sell, pool core simplifying how people use chemicals. Why? Because the same problem exists in both places. Too much access, not enough understanding. And instead of teaching understanding, the industry is trying to control the environment. Then we have the no chemical pool that still needs chemicals. We go to New York, there's a floating pool project. Idea is simple, we'll use river water, we'll filter it, avoid traditional chemical use. Sounds great, right? Until reality shows up. Because what are they running into? Bacteria, contamination, water quality concerns, and now they're considering adding chlorine as a backup. Of course they are, because at the end of the day, you can't replace the chemistry. You can only manage it. You can design systems, you can build technology, you can try to reduce chemical use, but eventually you come back to chemistry because chemistry is not optional. It's fundamental. Now let's talk about something more serious. There was a chemical incident at a public pool recently, multiple people affected. Cause improper chemical interaction. Here's the thing nobody wakes up and says, I'm gonna create chlorine gas today, but it happens because someone didn't understand what they were mixing, how it reacts, what conditions were. And chemistry doesn't forgive that. It doesn't care what the label says, it reacts based on what's actually happening. And then a bigger example, we've seen this one in larger scale too. At a biolab facility in Conyers, Georgia, water came into contact with stored chemicals that triggered a reaction. A major one. Fire, evacuations, air quality issues. Think about that. The same type of product you use every day caused a large scale event when the conditions changed. That's not a product problem, that's a condition problem. So where does everything come together? The label. The label assumes proper storage, proper handling, proper conditions. But what happens when those assumptions break? The chemistry. Takes over. And the chemistry doesn't follow the instructions. It follows reactions. If you think about enzymes, phosphate removers, lanthanum treatments, these aren't simple. They depend on timing, conditions, interaction with other chemicals. And when somebody buys those online with no explanation, they're guessing. And when it doesn't work, they blame the product, not the process. So here's something most people don't realize. Companies don't go to court over dosing instructions. They go to court over who owns the chemistry, how it's used, how it's described. We've seen disputes involving companies like natural chemistry, and those disputes, they're about intellectual property, not are we telling people to use too much? And I'm not saying that they are, but that tells you everything. Look at everything. All of it. Selena's controlling distribution, pool core simplifying usage, floating pool, returning to chlorine, chemical incidents showing what can happen when it all goes wrong. What do they all have in common? Industry is trying to reduce risk without increasing understanding because understanding doesn't scale. Now you might think that understanding is what needs to be increased, but think of how much work goes into training just one individual. There are over 50,000 pool service companies in the United States. That's why they shoot for reducing risk. That's why understanding is hard to pull off. Educating the market is an incredibly expensive and daunting task. But understanding doesn't scale. You can't force someone to learn chemistry. God knows I've tried. But you can restrict access, you can simplify systems, and you can control distribution. I would hope to see more and more companies look at Amazon, Walmart, and eBay and how these things are going out and who they're going out to without any rhyme or reason, without any instruction whatsoever. Put a halt to that. Put a halt to that. So here's the deal. If you're a pool professional, this is your moment because while the industry simplifies everything, you are the one who understands what's actually happening. You're the one who sees why the system worked, why it failed, what changed. That's your value. Not the product, the understanding. God bless the pool pro.

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SPEAKER_07 26:57

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SPEAKER_05 27:06

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SPEAKER_04 27:18

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SPEAKER_05 27:27

So why does the label say that? Here's the thing. It has to work for everyone. It has to work for the best pool, it has to work for the worst pool, it has to work for the neglected pool, the pool nobody tested, the pool with the lawn that's three feet high. It has to work even when nobody knows what they're doing. So it overshoots on purpose. That's the second realization. This label is built for the worst case scenario, not your specific situation. Now, let's talk about the law, because this is where things get real. There's a case, Lucas V Biolab Inc. Pool Chemicals, chlorine tablets. A woman buys a bucket, she leaves it in her car, the heat builds, fumes, form, she gets exposed, she gets hurt, so she sues. And one of her claims is the label didn't warn me enough. Seems reasonable. The court said no, because the label is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and it follows those rules. You generally cannot sue over what it says. So let that sink in a minute. You can't take the label into court and say it should have been different. Because legally it already says what it's allowed to say. Here's the twist. The case didn't disappear. The court allowed other claims, packaging, handling, design, not just the label. Again, the label's not there to be perfect, it's there to be approved. Now, enzymes, we spoke about that the other week. This is where chemistry ignores marketing completely because enzymes are protein and chlorine is designed to break down organic material. So what happens when you add enzymes to chlorinated water? The enzyme starts working, breaking down oils and buildup, and the chlorine starts breaking down the enzyme immediately. So does it work? Yeah, it does. But only for a short time. It becomes a race. Can the enzyme do enough work before it gets destroyed? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the conditions. But one thing is clear, they are not working together long term. One is breaking things down, the other is breaking the enzyme down. And the label does not explain that. So I'm not telling you not to add enzymes. I'm not telling you adding enzymes is a waste of money. I'm going to tell you to add enzymes with a low chlorine level. Take it down to the minimum, one part per million. Add your enzymes, give it a day or two, and then jack up the chlorine if you need to. That gives your enzymes 24 to 48 hours to work while being broken down by chlorine at a level of one part per million. Chlorine levels higher, it's going to break down faster. How fast? It may survive in the water for hours. It may survive in the water for only minutes. Going with the low chlorine level ensures you get the maximum effectiveness from the enzyme product that you added, no matter whose it is. Keep in mind the label can't explain all that because it has to stay simple. So, in fact, the label tries to simplify complex chemistry. So that way it can be used by anyone. Even if that means leaving things out. Now, let's talk lanthanum and product claims. There have been disputes in this industry, not about dosing, but about chemistry itself. Companies like natural chemistry have been involved in issues around lanthanum-based phosphate removal, product formulation, patent rights, not about how much to use, but about who owns the chemistry. That's important because it shows you where the industry puts its attention. This is the case. Natural Chemistry LP V, Arenda Technologies, Inc., filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Now, here's what matters. This case involved natural chemistry LP and claims against multiple defendants, including individuals associated with competing products. At its core, this was a dispute involving phosphate removal products and related business activity in the pool industry. According to the complaint filed by Natural Chemistry, they alleged that certain actions infringed on patent rights, certain activities violated a prior settlement agreement, and certain statements made in the marketplace were misleading. Now, let's be very clear. Those are allegations contained in the complaint. They're not findings of fact. One of the key legal questions in the case was this whether a separate entity or individual could be held responsible for obligations from a prior agreement involving another company. That concept is called successor liability. Now, here's what actually happened. The court reviewed the arguments, the evidence presented, and the legal standards that apply. And instead of going to trial, the court issued a ruling called summary judgment. That means the court determined that a trial was not necessary to resolve the legal issues in dispute. The outcome? The court ruled in favor of the defendants. Specifically, the court found there was no sufficient basis to apply successor liability. There was no evidence that prior settlement obligations transferred and there was no legal justification to treat the entities as the same. In simple terms, the court determined that operating in a similar space or continuing related business activity does not automatically make a party responsible for another company's prior legal obligations. Now, the case also included claims regarding statements made in the marketplace. But again, those claims were raised in the complaint. And the court's ruling did not establish liability against the defendants on those claims. So what's the takeaway? It's this there's a difference between what is alleged, what is argued, and what is proven in court. And in this case, the court determined that the legal threshold for the claims presented was not met. That's not opinion, that's the ruling. So now, why does this matter to you as a service professional? Because conversations in this industry often blur the line between chemistry, marketing, and legal outcomes. And when those lines get blurred, misinformation spreads fast. So if you're going to reference this case, reference it correctly. Say what was alleged, say what the court found, and stop there. Because once you go beyond that, you're no longer talking about the case, you're telling a story. And those are not the same thing. I'm Rudy Stankowitz. And this is what the record actually shows. Let's take this out of theory for a minute at a facility operated by Biolab in Conyers, Georgia. We've spoken about this before. Water came into contact with stored chlorine products that triggered a reaction, not a small one, a major fire, chemical release, evacuations, highways shut down. Think about that. The same type of product you scoop out of a bucket triggered a large-scale incident when conditions changed. That wasn't due to bad instructions. That was chemistry reacting to the environment. So keep in mind the label works only as long as the conditions match what it assumes. Change the conditions, and the chemistry takes over. So is the label wrong? No. But it is generalized, it's conservative, and it's legally protected. It's written for the worst case scenario, the least experienced user, the highest level of risk. It is designed to prevent failure, not to optimize performance. And once you understand that, everything changes. You stop following instructions blindly, you start testing, start thinking, start adjusting. Because your pool is not average, your pool is not a guess, it is not a just in case, it is a system, and that system changes daily. The bucket doesn't know your pool, the label doesn't know your water, but your test kit does. And if you're still letting the bucket think for you, you're not managing chemistry, you're following directions, and those are not the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

That said, and this is not contradictory, although it may sound so. Read the label instructions.

SPEAKER_05 36:13

Following the label instructions is the only way to cover your ass. If something goes wrong and you follow the label instructions, you are a heck of a lot better off than if you have not.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Because again that label is legally rejected. Anything outside of that? Not so much. This is all I have for this week. This is the talking tools on next time.