Identity of Invercargill's mystery pooper may never be known

An Invercargill aquatic centre targeted by a serial pooper earlier this year is now "incident free". Photo / Thinkstock

An Invercargill aquatic centre targeted by a serial pooper earlier this year is now "incident free", says its relieved manager.

Throughout February and March, staff at Invercargill's Splash Palace Aquatic Centre were taunted after poop was discovered in one of the centre's pools six Friday nights in a row.

The story made national and international headlines, and the identity of the mystery pooper, or poopers, has never been revealed.

Speaking months on from the nasty event, Splash Palace aquatic services manager Pete Thompson said he would not speculate as to whether the faeces were left behind intentionally or accidentally.

"I think there may have been a combination of things going on - there may have been someone who did it deliberately, there may have also been somebody who had some accident. It is just an unfortunate series of coincidences.

"All we know is that it stopped. We put the message out there, we got key message delivered, the awareness was raised, and it stopped.

"That was the outcome that ultimately we were looking for."

Mr Thompson said he was pleased to report Splash Palace was "incident free".

"Obviously I'm glad it's over - that is a given I think, and obviously we don't want it to happen again in the future.

"We learnt a lot from this. Accidents like this, be they a young child or an adult - there is a potential for that to happen and I think facilities like ourselves need to be prepared to have processes and schemes in place for if this sort of thing does eventuate."

Mr Thompson credited the public for their support throughout the fiasco.

"Part of the success of the management if you like, is the understanding the public gave us. We were quite fortunate that they were very understanding and appreciated it was something we didn't have a lot of control over."

Each time the pooper struck, staff had to clear the affected pool and remove the solid matter, Mr Thompson said.

"Depending on what has actually happened, a determination is made as to what an appropriate treatment is, and normally that involved spot dosing with some chemicals and letting it run through the filter a couple of times."