National Swimming Pool Foundation® Sponsors CPSC National Pool and Spa Safety Event, October 6, 2010

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ --

The National Swimming Pool Foundation® (NSPF®) will host the first of three Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) National Pool and Spa Safety Events to help bring all public pools and spas into compliance with the P&SSAct on October 6 at the World Aquatic Health Conference™ (WAHC™).  The Safety Event is slated from 8am -11am at the Antlers Hilton Hotel, 4 South Cascade, Colorado Springs, Colorado.  People interested in attending should register at www.nspf.org or call 719-540-9119.  There is no charge to attend this event.

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The National Pool and Spa Safety Events are essential to meeting the CPSC's mission to educate state and local health officials, as well as the public and media, on compliance procedures as outlined by guidance documents provided by the CPSC.  The P&SSAct required all 300,000 public pools and spas to come into compliance by December 19, 2008; up to 50% of public pools and spas may not yet be in compliance.

The first National CPSC Pool and Spa Safety Event will be a three hour event, and will consist of training, educational materials, demonstrations, and a subject matter expert from CPSC to answer questions.  Public health inspectors working in the field, state and local health officials, regulators, pool and spa operators, aquatic facility managers, interested individuals, and media are encouraged to attend and participate in this critical learning opportunity.  The Safety Event will be video taped and subsequently posted on the NSPF Web site, www.nspf.org and on the CPSC Web site, http://www.poolsafety.gov. Two additional National Pool and Spa Safety Events are planned for 2011.  Locations, dates, and schedule will be announced.

NSPF has a long history of working with environmental health officials and departments.  The Foundation has given over 1.1 million dollars in grants since 2003 to help prevent recreational water illness, drowning, injuries and chemical exposure.  For the last three years, NSPF has hosted the National Swimming Pool Environmental Health Leader Conference (NSPEHL) at no cost to attending environmental health officials.  The conference has become recognized as a key meeting to foster communication, best practices, and problem solving between state and county health departments.  The 2010 NSPEHL meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 6 from 1:00pm – 5:00 pm, immediately after the Safety Event, prior to the WAHC welcome reception at 7:00 pm.  The placement of this Event will allow leading environmental health officials to connect to the most current research and educational materials.  The 2009 NSPEHL meeting reported record attendance; twenty-two states and the District of Columbia were represented, which account for regions that represent about 80% of the nation's public pools. The four states with the most pools – California, Florida, Texas, and Arizona – were all represented.  At that meeting, attending health officials requested that the CPSC have greater collaboration with health departments and asked that NSPF play a more prominent role in disseminating information between Environmental Health officials and the CPSC.

About NSPF

The National Swimming Pool Foundation® (NSPF®) is a non-profit organization founded in 1965, giving back over $3.7 million in the past six years to fund grants to prevent illness, injury, and drowning, and to demonstrate the benefits of aquatic activity.  NSPF is the leading educator for professionals who service and operate public and private pools and spas and for public health officials who are responsible for pool safety.  NSPF instructors have trained over 282,000 professionals worldwide and their materials have been used in over 64 countries.  To learn more visit www.nspf.org.

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THOMAS LACHOCKI, Ph.D

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SOURCE National Swimming Pool Foundation