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.
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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Surfers willing to part with some disposable “big dollars” to surf a fresh-water “toilet”… should be aware of the potential dangers!
BSR’s gonna get sued to kingdom come. Cash in those vouchers quick!
Shortly after getting out of the pool…
Hey Derek, is that shit on your lips, na it’s your mustache.
Rock salt is dirt cheap by the ton, why not just maker briny?
Corrosion.
Would that be a bad thing?
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
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.
Insightful reply . Chemist or Cabana Boy or Plumber ?
All of the above.
The legacy of Rutherford continues 👍
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?
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.
Laird’s trained his cribriform plate to be impenetrable to trophozoites btw, instructional dvd series forthcoming.
Spoiler alert: it involves snorting lines of magnesium and Super Creamer.
That was an easy investment shorting the wave tub industry.
Looks like the choked out security guard got his revenge via mother nature
Did any one else get a pop up ad for “spaboy. The future of saltwater filtration”?
I got an advertisement for a German fish finder sonar thingy ma jig ?
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.
Sure she wasn’t looking up Wilko .He was a ( copa ) Cabana Boy ?
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 .
Got a Roto Root Her ad.
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?
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
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
Slater bioterrorism
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 .
Yea, nah that’s fucked up. Condolences to those that were close to him.
mad goat disease is called scrapie.
How to filter a lake though? That’s an awful lot of water to clean.
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 ) ?
Chlorine bleach
The tried and trusted method ,been burning swimmers eyes and keeping them alive in pools since 1910 .
The real question is, how do I get me one of these friends who buy their friends expensive stuff?
RIP Fabrizio.
Your family should sue the Waco World into oblivion.
One look at that water and they should have known.
Death.
Surf ranch either scrambling – do they have filtration? Or rubbing hands together with glee!!
Surf Ranch RIP.
No refunds? That is ridiculous.
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.
A little common sense goes a long way. Good on ya for handling it like and adult.
“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.