QUICK SUMMARY

A 2011 New York Sanitary Code rule requires a certified lifeguard at every pool over 2,000 sq ft or 5 ft deep — including shallow, adult-only gym lap pools that never needed one. It applies the same supervision standard to a waterpark and to an adult lap lane. The lifeguard shortage has made the consequences impossible to ignore: pools close on members who paid to swim, on seniors who swim because nothing else is gentle enough on their joints, on patients prescribed aquatic therapy by their doctors — and on the youth and municipal pools the State is actively trying to keep open through NY SWIMS, because every certified lifeguard absorbed by a 24-hour gym is one fewer available where children actually need one. The rule was misaligned long before the shortage hit. This petition asks the NYS Department of Health to fix it.

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THE DETAIL

New York State is in the middle of a sustained lifeguard shortage. The Governor herself acknowledged this when she announced nearly $150 million in NY SWIMS funding in August 2024 to keep public pools open. But there is one place the shortage is hitting that almost no one is talking about: the adult lap pools at gyms and fitness centers.

I'm a member of a national gym chain. Our local pool closes on a regular basis — sometimes for hours, sometimes for entire days — because the gym cannot find a certified lifeguard to staff it. Even when a lifeguard is on duty, state-mandated breaks shut the pool down repeatedly throughout the day. The adults who depend on that pool for lap swimming, water aerobics, joint rehabilitation, arthritis management, post-surgical recovery, and prescribed aquatic therapy show up to a locked gate. I regularly travel for work and never experience these outages at any out-of-state locations of the same gym chain.

This is a common experience at gyms across New York State. It is not a problem of operator effort. It is a problem of a 1980s-era rule that was last refreshed in 2011 and never accounted for adult-only fitness pools.

THE RULE

Under 10 NYCRR Section 6-1.23(a)(2) — a regulation in the State Sanitary Code, not a law any legislator voted on — every swimming pool in New York that is bigger than 2,000 square feet OR deeper than five feet must have a certified lifeguard physically poolside whenever it is open. A standard four-lane lap pool runs about 2,500 to 3,000 square feet and almost always has a deep end at or just below five feet. Either fact alone triggers the requirement.

The same regulation already recognizes that not every pool needs a poolside lifeguard. Hotels, campgrounds, and homeowner pools have all been given lower-supervision options under the same rule. Adult-only fitness facility pools — the smallest, calmest, most closely watched pools in the system, attended almost exclusively by lap-swimming adults — have not.

THE CONSEQUENCE

Pools close. Members pay for a service they cannot use. Operators absorb significant payroll costs and pass them through in dues. And every certified lifeguard absorbed into a 24-hour adult gym is one fewer lifeguard available to staff the municipal pools, youth swim programs, and community aquatic centers that the State, through NY SWIMS, is actively trying to expand. The rule, as written today, makes the lifeguard shortage worse — not better.

THE ASK

I am calling on the New York State Department of Health and the Public Health and Health Planning Council to update 10 NYCRR Subpart 6-1 to add an adult-only fitness facility pool category eligible for the existing Supervision Level IV standard. The change would apply only to pools that meet ALL of the following:

• The facility's membership and access are restricted to adults 18 and over.
• Maximum water depth does not exceed six feet.
• No diving boards, water slides, wave equipment, or other aquatic amusements.
• At least one staff member trained in CPR and first aid is on the premises whenever the pool is open and can respond to the pool deck within 60 seconds.
• The facility complies with all existing Level IV safety requirements: signage, lifesaving equipment, written safety plan, brochure, daily inspections.
• Any minor entering as a guest is accompanied at all times by a parent or guardian.
   

This is a narrow, conservative change. It preserves every other safety requirement in the Sanitary Code. It does not touch a single pool a child could access. It does not eliminate operator liability. It simply applies an existing principle — that supervision should match the actual risk profile of the pool and its users — to a category of pool the current rule overlooked.

I am also calling on Senator Samra Brouk, Assemblymember Jen Lunsford, and the Governor's office to support this change, either by directing DOH to open rulemaking or by introducing legislation that accomplishes the same result.

WHO THIS HELPS

• Adults who swim laps for cardiovascular health and joint preservation.
• Seniors who rely on aquatic exercise as one of the few sustainable forms of fitness in older age.
• People recovering from surgery, injury, or stroke whose physical therapists have prescribed water therapy.
• People with arthritis, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions for whom land-based exercise is painful or impossible.
• Veterans referred to aquatic therapy through the VA.
• Pregnant women using water exercise for safe, low-impact prenatal fitness.
• The certified lifeguards New York genuinely does need — at municipal pools, summer camps, public beaches, and youth swim programs — who are currently being absorbed into adult facilities that don't need them.
   

If you have ever shown up to a closed pool, paid for access to a service you couldn't use, or watched a gym pool close because of staffing rather than safety — please sign and share.

This is not a request to weaken safety. It is a request to apply existing safety principles consistently, in 2026, to the kind of pool the rule's authors didn't anticipate.

Thank you.