Hawke’s Bay pool tackles rise in ‘code browns’ with education campaign after 20 in six months

A Hawke’s Bay pool wants a public education campaign about the challenge of dealing with code browns, after being forced to clean up nearly 20 in the past six months.

The multimillion-dollar Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre in Hastings is owned and operated by the Hawke’s Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust and sponsored by Pak’nSave Hastings.

Its facilities include a 50m Olympic pool, a 25m training/learn to swim pool and two hydrotherapy pools, and features gold-standard accessibility.

But on Monday, those running the pools took to social media to tell users: “we need to talk about the rise in code browns”.

A code brown refers to faecal matter or vomit in the pool.

Hawke’s Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust general manager Brendan Bourke said during the past six months, the pools have had close to 20 “invasive matter” incidents, referring to vomiting or code browns.

“This has increased somewhat recently, hence we now need to do something more about it.”

Hawke's Bay Regional Aquatic Centre. Photo / Jack Riddell

Each incident meant a full shutdown of the pool, heavy cleaning costs, a significant tie-up of staff resources and a lot of disappointed swimmers with cancelled classes, he said.

Bourke said how long a pool was closed for depended on the severity of the incident and which pool the contamination occurred in. However, he added that staff strictly followed the best-practice guidelines for water quality – ensuring the pools continued to be a safe and healthy option for sport and exercise in the community.

With strict procedures and processes to follow after an incident, including directives on chemicals, water filtration, staffing and lesson transfers, Bourke said the costs were not insignificant.

“This is not sustainable at this frequency for a community-focused charitable trust like ours.”

The focus at the pool has now shifted to educating parents to ensure their children have used the bathroom before entering the pool.

“Additional signage, more communications to our members, and training staff to be more engaged with our users, will all assist in reducing these incidents,” Bourke said.

The Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre isn’t the only pool in the region that has to deal with code browns.

A Hastings District Council (HDC) spokesperson said as a general estimate, there were usually five to 10 code browns a year in the council’s year-round pools and a few incidents in the summer pools.

HDC manages the Clive Memorial Pool and Swim Heretaunga in Flaxmere year-round, and the Village Pool in Havelock North during the summer months.

The spokesperson said when a code brown is discovered, staff evacuate the pool, scoop out the excrement and dispose of it appropriately, before ensuring all debris is removed, the pool is vacuumed if necessary, and chlorine levels are tested, keeping the pool clear until the water quality is within safe levels.

A Napier City Council (NCC) spokesperson said there had been 12 code browns at Ocean Spa since the start of 2024 and 28 at the Napier Aquatic Centre in the same timeframe.

The spokesperson said NCC had specific standards to follow depending on the type of code brown but followed a similar process to HDC.

NCC had not noticed an increase in code browns recently, but they generally increased in summer as more younger people used the facilities.

The spokesperson said NCC aquatic facilities sold and encouraged the use of water nappies for all pool users under the age of 4.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.