Swimming pool safety regulations enacted in Cowichan Bay earlier this year following a 2013 tragedy could be coming soon to the rest of the regional district.
Mike Tippett, deputy general manager of planning and development for the CVRD, said staff were instructed Tuesday to prepare bylaws making fencing around pools mandatory throughout the district.
That’s the same day the B.C. coroner’s office released the official report into last summer’s drowning death of three-year-old Cowichan Bay resident Jordan Antonio Slottke.
Coroner Lyn Blenkinsop made specific reference to local bylaws in her report.
“As a result of the B.C. Coroner’s Service investigation into Jordan’s death, the Cowichan Valley Regional District has now enacted a bylaw in Cowichan Bay, that they plan to expand to the other eight electoral areas, requiring residential pools to be fenced,” Blenkinsop wrote. That bylaw was passed on May 14.
Blenkinsop noted that at the time of the tragedy, the CVRD had no bylaws in place to regulate private residential pool safety or fencing around swimming pools.
The Pool and Hot Tub Council of Canada’s guidelines for pool safety recommend — along with mandatory adult supervision for children and a fenced yard — supplementary safety measures including safety covers, access alarms, water sensors, and a four-sided fence or restricted openings around the pool itself.
“Any one or a combination of these measures can provide an extra element of pool safety,” the coroner wrote. “As well, it is recommended that all floating toys be removed from the pool when they are not being used, so that children do not endanger themselves by attempting to retrieve them from the water.”
Tippett said once the new bylaws are prepared, the committee would have to decide if it will go through a public hearing or public notice process.
If it goes by the public notice route, the bylaws could be adopted by the end of the year. A public hearing process could see that timeline pushed back to 2015.
Determining how to enforce the bylaws would be the second stage of the process.
Blenkinsop’s report, meanwhile, rules the death accidental.
It states that around 10 a.m. on June 30, 2013, Jordan was playing in the backyard with a family member. That family member went into the house to get the boy a snack and when she came back Jordan wasn’t where she had left him.
“She checked the yard and at around 10:07 a.m. found him unresponsive on the bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool, completely submerged in water,” the report states. “Two large plastic balls and a small inflatable air mattress were floating on the surface of the pool.”
The coroner’s report said the person who found him called another family member. They jumped into the pool to retrieve the boy and called 911.
Forty minutes later, a pulse was established and Jordan was transferred by air ambulance to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Forty-eight hours later, on July 2, the young boy died.
