[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by Choro&Swing

Salt is a compound of Sodium and Chlorine. Sodium chloride. NaCl. In a salt water pool, water dissolves the salt so that chlorine can float around killing things. The alternative is pouring in chlorine bleach or using powdered product that releases chlorine when it dissolves. Salt is a lot cheaper, and, I guess, gentler. (I’m not sure.) But the salt concentration is much less than in the ocean. I’m not even sure if it tastes salty. However, it IS strong enough to kill bacteria and viruses, and it doesn’t take long to do it. The process of doing that (or being exposed to sunlight, etc.) uses up chlorine, as I recall, which is why people test the water and add more salt if necessary.

With social distancing, you should be essentially risk free in an outdoor pool, even with spit and mucous and pee. You would be at much greater risk at, say, the average neighborhood pool in the Bronx on a summer afternoon with several hundred kids in the water at once and more lying all around the edge. But that’s not the situation here.

If they never empty the pools but keep adding salt would think that the salt concentration goes up and up.

How do they control salt concentration?