A recent story that went mainstream in media outlets puts the pool industry in a rather negative light. It discusses a study published in the journal Nature Sustainability that highlights what it considers the impact of the wealthy population’s excessive use of water in urban areas. While the study focused on Cape Town in South Africa, the authors suggest that their findings are relevant to other cities with high inequality, including those that have faced serious water shortages due to droughts and overconsumption in the past two decades. The article mentions cities like Miami, Mexico City, Sydney, London, and Beijing as examples.
The study, which used interviews and focus groups to model water consumption, found that the two wealthiest groups of residents in Cape Town were responsible for more than half of the city’s water consumption, despite representing less than 15 percent of the population. Most of their water usage was attributed to nonessential activities, such as watering their gardens, filling their swimming pools, and washing cars. In contrast, the water use among the rest of the population focused on basic requirements, such as drinking and hygiene.
While the article acknowledges that the study’s findings are relevant to other cities with high inequality, it does more to generate negativity about swimming pools than it speaks to direct instances of where this may be occurring in the United States. In general, outlets like the Washington Post picked up the story and ran their version with a byline “Rich people’s swimming pools are fueling water crises in cities”, which is not even remotely accurate. The story was also picked up by Time, NBC, and many other news sources.
Certainly, the news the last two previous years discussed the implications of a drought plaguing California, but after a winter of tremendous rains and snowfall, more than half the state is now free from the drought. Most experts agree that we’re in a much different place than we were a year ago and are no longer in a drought. In fact, according to the most recent studies, there are no areas of the state of California currently impacted by severe or extreme drought.
Seeing that the water crisis was primarily limited to California, it does not make much sense that news outlets would perpetuate a story such as this. While there is an ongoing drought in places like Kansas and Florida, the only U.S. city the study cited was Miami, which is ironic because the city of Miami is not currently affected by severe drought. The fact is, when this type of news goes mainstream it can have potentially negative implications and socio-economic impact on the pool industry.
An article in Fortune cites the Nature Sustainability study and leads with the fact that a drought in the Colorado River Basin threatens the water supply of seven states. Well, California is the biggest consumer of that water, most of which is earmarked for irrigation and that has very little to do with people filling their swimming pools. As mentioned, California is no longer in a drought, so this should greatly mitigate that water usage.
Let’s look at the facts. Pools actually are a very important part of our society. The swimming pool market was valued at $3.18 billion in 2022. The workforce this industry employs comprises over 50,000 pool construction workers and over 92,500 in the pool service profession in the United States alone (IBISWorld – 2023).
Swimming pools have been shown to increase the value of a home by up to 7%, homes with pools sell on average for an additional $28,945. Putting in a swimming pool rather than a lawn is actually a smarter way to save water according to Stanford Magazine who said, “If you’re interested in which uses less water, the answer is quite simple: a pool. A lawn requires 0.6 gallons of water per square foot each day, compared to 0.3 gallons for a pool.”
Overall, the study highlights the impact of excessive water consumption by wealthy individuals during water shortages in Cape Town, South Africa. Unfortunately, it does not tell the complete story, at least not to the extent for major news outlets to lead with it as a feature for U.S. readers to absorb.
While preserving water resources appears to remain a hot-button issue with news outlets, supporting local businesses and jobs continues to be something we cannot look away from, especially right now. Ultimately when consumers read news of this nature it does put negative connotations about pools in their minds. Policymakers in particular may need to consider the source of this news and who this study was based on.
