We’re back with another edition of Urban Legend: Fact or Fiction. In this chapter, we are going to find out if there are really chemicals you can put in your pool to detect if someone pees.
The Story
“Hey be careful, this pool has a chemical that turns the water bright orange if you pee in it,” said by people every summer all across this great nation.
Variants
This is by far the most straightforward urban legend we have ever dealt with. Literally, the only change is the color the chemical will be if it detects any urine, and it’s been every color of the rainbow. Including (dark) blue, which doesn’t make much sense considering it would be harder to spot against the blue pool water. Also red seems a bit suspect because it could easily be mistaken for blood.
Color theory aside, the legend of this unnamed chemical has been applied to both public and private pools and hot tubs in every imaginable location.
Themes
The main, and really only theme here is don’t pee in the pool. Beyond it just being icky to swim in your own, or someone else’s urine, there actually are some health risks. While chlorine in a well-maintained pool will kill off bacteria, it doesn’t just erase pee. The only way to totally rid a pool of pee is to fully drain and replace the water. This is an incredibly expensive and often obnoxious process. At least according to every pool owner we’ve ever met.
If it being just plain old icky isn’t enough to de-sway you. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a page dedicated to the health risks of peeing in pools.
- “ It decreases the amount of chlorine available to kill germs.
- It creates chemical irritants called chloramines (“chlor,” short for chlorine, and “amines,” compounds that contain nitrogen).”
If you’ve ever noticed a pool “smell” it is probably the result of chloramines, not chlorine like most attribute it to. The chloramines created in the water can turn into gas in the surrounding air. According to the CDC, if inhaled this gas can cause respiratory symptoms like nasal irritation, coughing, and wheezing. It can also trigger asthma attacks and cause red and itchy eyes, skin irritation, and rashes for swimmers.
Pop Culture
In 1985, Barbara Learning wrote a biography on our ol’ pal Orson Welles in which she relayed a story about a friend, Charlie MacArthur, who used “a compound” to change the color of the water in a pool when Welles peed in it. This story dates to around 1937 and is probably the earliest account of this legend.
- 1995 – an episode of Nickelodeon’s “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” titled “Splashdown” had a substance called “Wee-Wee See.” As the name implies it was used to bust pool pissers by turning the water a different color.
- 2010 – The comedy “Grown Ups” has Kevin James‘ character pee in the pool in front of his humiliated daughter. As the water turns from a pale to a dark blue families scream and race to avoid the cloud of urine.
Is it Real?
As our tone has probably already given away, this chemical is fictitious. Despite what James says in the above clip, this chemical IS an old wives tale. No compound changes the color of pool water when it comes in contact with urine. Most attempts to design one fail since there is no way to keep a compound like this from reacting with other organic matter in the water and not just urine.
With that being said, there is a way to test for urine in pools and get a rough idea of how much they may contain. But it is far from instantaneous and certainly won’t out who the pool pisser(s) is/are.
So How Do You Test For It?
University of Alberta’s Division of Analytical and Environmental Toxicology ran a study that tested over 250 samples from 31 pools and hot tubs in two (unnamed) Canadian cities. The research team then compared these samples against local tap water as a control group.
The issue is due to chemical reactions in the pool water the team couldn’t directly test for urine. Instead, they tested for acesulfame potassium or Ace K, an artificial sweetener often used in processed foods, so it’s widely consumed. It also doesn’t break down in our digestive tracts so it’s excreted when we urinate. Since there is no reason for a pool to be treated with artificial sweetener, any present in it would have to come from pee. [Or possibly a REALLY weird prank.]
In sampling these pools they found concentrations ranging from 7 to 100 nanograms per liter. This is up to 570 times more than the levels found in tap water. They were then able to use these tests to figure out roughly how much urine existed in these pools/hot tubs overall.
So How Much Pee Is In Pools?
One 220,000-gallon pool contained 20 gallons of urine, while another pool half its size contained 7 gallons. However, Lindsay Blackstock, co-author of the study warns that these results cannot be applied to all community pools. “The amount of urine deposited into each pool would be specific to a number of factors,” said Blackstock.
These factors can include things like how many swimmers use the pool, the swimming hygiene practices of a community, and how often the pool is refilled. Some swimmers may not even consume processed foods, meaning they could pee the day away in the water and this test would not pick it up. Blackstock recommends swimmers rinse off and use the bathroom before entering the swimming pool. Doing so also helps remove things like oils and dirt on our skin that can add to polluting pool water.
So while it is possible to test for wizz after the fact, it is not possible to treat an entire pool to change colors when someone pees. This urine indicator chemical is:
