Ask HN: Why not add salt to lakes and swimming pools to reduce drownings?

Re:Ask HN: Why not add salt to lakes and swimming pools to r... by togaen on Sunday July 31, 2022 @07:00PM (#32299680)

To make a meaningful difference you’d have to add so much salt that swimming just wouldn’t be fun anymore. Never mind the utter infeasibility of it all in the first place:

Add salt to lakes, kill every living thing in and around the lake, deal with an enormous amount of rotting bio matter, and probably poison drinking water for an entire ecosystem.

Add it to pools, deal with salt deposits everywhere that ruin all the pool equipment, and make the water so saline that you can’t dump it anywhere.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why not add salt to lakes and swimming pools to r... by afiori on Wednesday August 03, 2022 @03:25AM (#32328647)

> To make a meaningful difference you’d have to add so much salt that swimming just wouldn’t be fun anymore

It is way easier not drown in the ocean (unless there are waves). In saltwater you can mostly stay still and keep you face out of the water; in pool water it requires a lot more effort (both physical to keep yourself up and mental to control your breathing) and I say this as someone with more fat than the average person)

[ Parent | on HN ]