Oliver Kurtz
The Florida surfer Oliver Kurtz, visiting the pool shortly before shutdown.

Waco pool closed until March 2019; no refunds (only credits) for pre-bookings!

But good news! Filtration system to be installed!

It always astonishes me, and it shouldn’t by now after so many orbits, how quickly life can turn.

On the day before the well-received Stab High event at the BSR tank  in Waco, Texas, a New Jersey surfer, Fabrizio Stabile, was dead in hospital after contracting Naegleria fowleri, known as “brain-eating amoeba”, shortly after visiting the pool.

Whether he got it in the unfiltered water of the pool (it’s classified as a lake not a swimming pool and therefore doesn’t, or at least didn’t, have to comply to the same standards as a public pool) or somewhere else ain’t clear.

But it did mean the pool had to close while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tested for the deadly amoeba. And, now, it’ll be shut for the next five months.

It may not end there for BSR.

The family of Lauren Seitz, who died of the same infection as Stabile, is suing the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a million bucks.

And if you had sessions booked at Waco?

A Californian reader emailed this morning to say he’d booked a thousand bucks worth of pool time for he and his six buddies next Sunday (October 7) and after the sudden closure had been offered a “gift card” but no refund.

Upon reopening in March, we will continue to add chemicals to treat our lake but with a newly added filtration system, much like a swimming pool. We will be canceling all sessions currently booked and will be applying the total amount spent under each reservation to a gift card for future use.

“Coming back at a later date is not an option,” he writes. “Emailed for a refund but no response.”

Does the spectre of brain-eating amoeba put the wind up him a little?

“Ha! Fuck ya it does,” he wrote, adding that he might return if Waco got “a new filter and a bigger barrel.”

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41 Comments
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Bampster

Surfers willing to part with some disposable “big dollars” to surf a fresh-water “toilet”… should be aware of the potential dangers!

PacificNorthPest

BSR’s gonna get sued to kingdom come. Cash in those vouchers quick!

Turf

Shortly after getting out of the pool…

Hey Derek, is that shit on your lips, na it’s your mustache.

Seas Nail

Rock salt is dirt cheap by the ton, why not just maker briny?

Nick Carroll

Corrosion.

Lemon Next to the Pie

Would that be a bad thing?

https://www.youtube.com/wat…

Seas Nail

I believe pool chlorine is generally more corrosive than regular salt, the (chlorine) gas is definitely more corrosive and especially so in a warm environment such as Texas. One being a chloride (rock salt) and the other usually a hypochlorite salt with either calcium or sodium, the hypochlorite being more reactive than the chloride. That said, they both will eat mild steel and oxidize aluminum tirelessly.
If you’re protected from the corrosive powers of one you’re protected from both, i.e if you’re running stainless steel then you’re good to go.

James Bickerton

Insightful reply . Chemist or Cabana Boy or Plumber ?

Seas Nail

All of the above.

James Bickerton

The legacy of Rutherford continues 👍

Nick Carroll

Hang the FUCK on. Fabrizio died BEFORE that event was held?

Is that what those 20,000 paying customers knew and the rest of us didn’t?

Old Kook

Call those guys who build custom aquariums on TV, in Vegas. Tell them they have 48 hours to do it, make a TV show about it, and they will somehow manage to get it done. Silly me, I just assumed they had some sort of filtration.

cuttiesandfloaters

Laird’s trained his cribriform plate to be impenetrable to trophozoites btw, instructional dvd series forthcoming.

Bleach'd Git

Spoiler alert: it involves snorting lines of magnesium and Super Creamer.

Banker Barrels

That was an easy investment shorting the wave tub industry.

Glen Winton’s mullet

Looks like the choked out security guard got his revenge via mother nature

Phat-wan kerr

Did any one else get a pop up ad for “spaboy. The future of saltwater filtration”?

James Bickerton

I got an advertisement for a German fish finder sonar thingy ma jig ?

Phat-wan kerr

right, thanks. that means the misses has been searching “pool boy” again. I think she might need to refine her porn searches in the future.

James Bickerton

Sure she wasn’t looking up Wilko .He was a ( copa ) Cabana Boy ?

Phat-wan kerr

I noticed “bbc” has been searched on the regular. I guess all the hanging out at home after losing her job has got her interested in world news .

Tub Sports

Got a Roto Root Her ad.

f u

maybe you could do an article on how much poison is being used at kellys tiolet bowl to keep it from turning into a swamp and does any of that poison make it into the ground water?

Doobalachy

Given the stab high contest was also an opportunity for the worlds best spinners to get on the piss the pool was always going to end up as healthy and Kuta pool bar during schoolies.

RIP Fabrizio

Krill

Discount tix pls. I ve forced a life time of life threatening things into my brain via my nasal ducts and I m still alive so fuck you brain nibblers I challenge you, fkn weak dog cunce

surfmom

Slater bioterrorism

James Bickerton

I really don’t enjoy the idea of swimming in lakes and feel justified now that “ The Creature from the Black Lagoon “ really exists.( even though it’s a microscopic amoeba ). Sadly a real tragedy for the young surfer from New Jersey .

surfmom

Yea, nah that’s fucked up. Condolences to those that were close to him.

Otto

mad goat disease is called scrapie.

Willy

How to filter a lake though? That’s an awful lot of water to clean.

James Bickerton

I once read that Hydrothermal Vents act as a filter for our oceans ,which up till now has been the site where storms created wind ,which made waves ,which eventually we surf as they like fireworks explode at the end of their aquatic journey . By playing god and only creating the wave, and not the environment which has formed over billions of years ,are we opening a potential Pandora’s Box ( or Pox in this case ) ?

f u

Chlorine bleach

James Bickerton

The tried and trusted method ,been burning swimmers eyes and keeping them alive in pools since 1910 .

Superworm

The real question is, how do I get me one of these friends who buy their friends expensive stuff?

Mik

RIP Fabrizio.

Your family should sue the Waco World into oblivion.

One look at that water and they should have known.

Death.

Tom

Surf ranch either scrambling – do they have filtration? Or rubbing hands together with glee!!

Morg

Surf Ranch RIP.

Karl Myers

No refunds? That is ridiculous.

D.J. Tanner

I booked/paid for late October sessions. I’ll be disputing it through my credit card company. Almost everyone (with strict work and family obligations) is going to do the same. It is “services not delivered to the consumer as agreed”. While i admittedly did’t read the fine print for the payment terms (and still haven’t), I can only assume they didn’t have a clause for someone getting their brain eaten. Everyone is going to win the disputes for that reason alone, and the credit card companies will shift the debt onto BSR.

?uzzled

A little common sense goes a long way. Good on ya for handling it like and adult.

ricmatic

“It always astonishes me, and it shouldn’t by now after so many orbits, how quickly life can turn.”

Best opening, to any act, ever.


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