My reply to a thread about borates was deleted... Am I off the mark?

[SoDel]

"reasonable minds can differ as to acceptable contact times and the HOCL concentration needed to achieve the desired result."

My point was that acceptable contact times and the HOCL concentration wasn't an opinion left up to reasonable minds, rather that contact times and HOCl concentrations were a matter of documented science. Some things we have the misfortune to find in our pool water are very difficult to kill and require scientific minimums of time and HOCl contact to sanitize the water. You can bet that my everyday concentrations of HOCl vary with exceptional usage, like a pool party, or the toddler that pooped in the pool. Sometimes, but not always, Caddyshack gets real!

Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree. Documented science will tell you that at a particular HOCL level, with a particular amount of time, x percent of a particular pathogen has a y percent chance of being disabled or dead, and z percent chance of making q percent of people swimming in the water sick. The idea is to get an acceptably small risk, but it’s ordinary mortals who decide what acceptable is, and they do that based on judgment rather than some exact documented science that provides the exact level of risk deemed to be “acceptable.” For example, regulatory bodies make this judgment call when they write rules, and they do differ, often quite a bit. I make this judgment call when I decided on max and min FC/CYA ratio for my pool (within TFP guidelines) and you make it for yours. My levels also suppress algae.

 

[Gotta Pool]

Actually, I don't think we are disagreeing, but you are getting a bit farther than I was trying to go with the minutiae of how many out of 1000 will get sick. This article, however, accurately (I believe) somewhat codifies (and justifies) what you are saying.