Beach pool closed over ‘gross’ discovery
A popular beach pool was closed to Sydneysiders hoping to cool off over the weekend after “some unwelcome swimmers” were found in the water.
Randwick City Council closed the Ross Jones Memorial Pool at Coogee Beach for maintenance after reports of fly larvae was detected on Friday.
“These smallish flies are pretty common in muggy weather” council stated on social media on Friday.
“They lay their eggs in decaying seaweed — gross.”
Council workers were able to quickly clean and empty the pool to remove any fly larvae found in the water, helping to reopen the pool before the end of the weekend.
Visitors were able to jump back in the water on Saturday.
“Thanks to the hard work of our beach services team, a new southerly swell and a drop in humidity — we had Ross Jones Memorial Pool at Coogee Beach back in swimming shape on Saturday,” council stated.
“Thanks for your patience, we will continue to monitor the pool for any further outbreaks.”
Entomologist and University of Sydney lecturer Tom White said while the creatures might make some swimmers a little squeamish, it was “not all bad news”.
“Something like a maggot is really quite low down on the food chain,” he told NCA NewsWire.
“So our local fish, octopus, all sorts of sea life, crabs, all those sorts of scavengers … that are recycling nutrients, they’d be having a great time,” Dr White said.
“They’d be really glad to have this little boost to our native wildlife.”
Dr White said warm and humid conditions, as well as the presence of seaweed in the water, could contribute to an outbreak of larvae.
“These are most likely kelp flies or seaweed flies, so they live their lives and they lay their eggs on seaweed,” he said.
“If there’s a big bloom of seaweed, as we’ve seen wash in off Coogee and the broader weather conditions are nice, it’s not so surprising that we get a nice outbreak of these lovely little maggots as well.”
Dr White reassured Coogee locals who might not be to keen on sharing the pool with the tiny critters that they did not pose a risk to swimmers and outbreaks of the insects would be less likely as the weather started to cool down.
