It's not a conspiracy, at least not at the pool store level. Most pool store employees are not highly trained and even those that are get a lot of their information from the sales reps for the various product lines that are sold in their stores. Even the formal training such as
NSPF CPO or
APSP CSP TECH courses mostly for commercial/public pools aren't perfect, but they still get a lot of their info from the manufacturers/distributors.
The only people who, as a group, really know the science but do not fully disclose it are the technical people (chemists and their management chain) at the manufacturers and major distributors (some of these reformulate products so have their own chemists). For the most part, the industry chain looks like the following:
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (
OxyChem) -- manufacturers
Chlorinated Isocyanurates (e.g. Trichlor and Dichlor)
and other manufacturers (overseas, including historic dumping from Spain and China -- see
this interesting document) sell to the following that reformulate or package and distribute
(BioLab manufactues chlorinated isocyanurates in addition to making them into product;
PPG makes Cal-Hypo for the commercial market).
- Chemtura who own BioLab -- many different brands including BioGuard, SpaGuard, OMNI, and many others. They only sell Trichlor and Dichlor for chlorine, bromine, Biguanide/PHMB (BioGuard SoftSwim), specialty products and do not sell Cal-Hypo.
[EDIT] As of January, 2014, KIK Custom Products purchased BioLab from Chemtura and launched Clorox branded products in 2014. In 2015 Centerbridge is to acquire KIK Custom Products. [END-EDIT]
- Arch Chemicals -- brands including HTH, Baquacil, BaquaSpa and others. They sell Cal-Hypo and Baquacil/Biguanide/PHMB as well as Trichlor, Dichlor, Bromine and specialty products. [EDIT] As of October, 2011, Lonza Group acquired Arch Chemicals. [END-EDIT]
- Rockwood Holdings who own Advantis Technology -- Brands include GLB, Leisure Time and others. They sell Trichlor and Dichlor for chlorine, bromine, and specialty products and do not sell Cal-Hypo nor Baquacil/Biguanide/PHMB. [EDIT] As of October, 2008, Rockwood Holdings sold Advantis Technology to Arch Chemicals. [END-EDIT]
- Alden Leeds -- many different brands often private labeled at pool stores or chains. They sell all forms of chlorine and also sell bromine and specialty products, but not Baquacil/Biguanide/PHMB.
- Chem Lab Products which have Kem-Tek brand -- They sell Trichlor, Dichlor, chlorinating liquid, bromine and specialty products, but not Cal-Hypo nor Baquacil/Biguanide/PHMB.
- Aqua Tri have All Clear brand -- They sell Trichlor, Dichlor, bromine, Cal-Hypo and specialty products, but not Baquacil/Biguanide/PHMB.
- N Jonas -- They sell a variety of private branded specialty chemicals and some sanitizers.
- Stellar -- They create tablets for large retailers.
I'm sure there are others that I have missed, especially in other countries such as
Pool Pride in New Zealand [EDIT] and
Pool Life in Canada (different than POOLIFE brand from Arch). [END-EDIT]
There are many different manufacturers of chlorinating liquid since this is something that is generally done regionally since transportation costs are high (remember that it's mostly water). In addition to Kem-Tek mentioned above, there is also
Hasa,
Thatcher (T-Chlor) and many others.
In reality, these Trichlor/Dichlor manufacturers/distributors have already shot themselves in the foot in that chlorine sales have slowed down in their growth rate due to the fairly rapid exodus to salt water chlorine generator (SWG) pools where around 85% of new in-ground pool installations have SWG systems installed in many areas of the country and many existing pools are getting converted to SWG. I'm sure that a significant driving factor was the frustration with getting algae blooms, cloudy water, and unusual chlorine demand, mostly from continued use of Trichlor without significant use of algaecide or phosphate remover. The high cost of fighting such blooms or of preventing them with lots of chemicals also made the economics of an SWG look more attractive. The irony is that had these manufacturers/distributors properly educated their sales channels, then pool users would have maintained their pools with less expense and fewer problems and the exodus to SWG systems would have been far slower. In the end, deceit usually ends up badly, but they had a good long 30+ year run (the science behind chlorine/CYA was definitively determined in 1973/1974).
Remember that the tobacco industry spread misinformation for years since the 1950's studies that showed links of smoking to lung cancer and it wasn't until the 1990's that this turned around (mostly from the defection by Jeffrey Wigand and the states getting fed up with their health cost burden). Of course, getting algae in pools isn't the same as dying from cancer, but the mantra that "CYA doesn't matter; only FC matters" and that "CYA only protects chlorine from sunlight so should not be used in indoor pools" has led to a situation where most indoor pools have no CYA and are significantly over-chlorinated as a result. This may lead to a higher production of disinfection by-products (it most likely does for ammonia producing nitrogen trichloride; urea is still an open question) in which case the respiratory and ocular health problems associated with indoor pools possibly could have been avoided, but we'll see. This is another common side effect of deceit; it often ends up with negative consequences far beyond what one would imagine (of course, even being honest does that sometimes, but you shouldn't feel as guilty about it
).
Richard
