New York Water Safety Coalition

In November 2020, as the threat of another pandemicrelated shutdown loomed across the Northeast, several swim schools in the New York State area banded together to form the New York Water Safety Coalition. Our stated mission: to increase access to aquatic facilities and swim instruction - allowing us to provide our essential service of drowning prevention.

There has been a troubling increase in drownings over the last year, due in part to the widespread shutdown of swimming programs during our nationwide lockdowns. Coupled with the incredibly low rates of COVID-19 transmission at swimming pools, we felt that swim schools in particular were being subjected to unnecessary – and indeed, destructive – governmental restrictions. While well-intentioned, a strong argument can be made that these restrictions have actually increased the overall threat to public health.

Data suggests that closing pools does very little to stop the spread of COVID-19, however, these closures likely increase drowning rates by reducing access to professional swim lessons. We feel it is essential to allow our members to continue teaching the life-saving skill of swimming.

Our Coalition faces a daunting task: Cutting through the fear and getting the facts about COVID-19 transmission around swimming pools, and the increased risk of drownings, into the hands of the decision makers in state government. We benefited greatly

BY BRENDAN O’MELVENY

FOUNDER, NEW YORK WATER SAFETY COALITION; CHIEF AQUATICS OFFICER, IMAGINE SWIMMING, INC.

Top row, left to right: Bobby Hazen, Saf-T-Swim; Brendan O’Melveny, NYWSC founder; Jim Spiers, Swim Jim; Lawrence Sherer, State & Broadway. Middle row: Casey Barrett, Imagine Swimming; Sean Smith, Goldfish; Craig Weingard, Penguin City Swim; Patrick Kennedy, State & Broadway. Bottom row: Heidi Reiss, Aquabeba; Vadim Shoykhet, Physique Swimming Not Pictured: Aileen Bucciero, Swim Tank

from previous work done by the USSSA, the Aquatics Coalition, the New Jersey Swim Safety Alliance, the Connecticut Coalition for Safer Swimming, and the California Coalition for Children’s Safety and Health, however, we learned that every state operates differently. We still needed to get our message to Governor Andrew Cuomo and his closest staff.

Yet, the halls of the New York capitol in Albany are not exactly known for being accessible to the average citizen... which is where lobbyists come in.

As the country anticipated a holiday surge in coronavirus cases, neighboring states began to increase restrictions on aquatics facilities. There was urgency to get our message out quickly and effectively. While some of our coalition members have long-standing relationships with state legislators, COVID-19 regulations are made by the executive branch, not the legislature. We recognized that there was simply no way to reach the people we needed to engage without the assistance of a well-placed lobbying firm.

Through our friends within the Connecticut Coalition, we were directed to State & Broadway, led by founding partner Lawrence Scherer. While lobbying efforts are inherently difficult to assess by objective measures, Larry and his team have been fantastic - not to mention, incredibly connected at the highest level of state government.

When NYC public schools closed temporarily in December due to an increase in the citywide test positivity rate (a rate that, confusingly, was many times higher than the positivity rate in public schools themselves), even the most optimistic among us were disheartened.

Fortunately, the school closures resulted in significant political backlash and it wasn’t long before a plan to gradually reopen schools was rolled out. Soon after, our Coalition received good news from our lobbyists: they had secured a meeting with top members of Governor Cuomo’s COVID-19 task force.

The Governor’s team was very receptive to our message, and asked us to help them put together a “Swim School Rubric,” which would determine how restrictions on different kinds of aquatic facilities (standalone pools, pools inside gyms, pools in institutes of higher education, etc.) would be implemented based on whether they were in green, yellow, orange, or red zones, as determined by the Governor’s “micro-cluster” framework.

Perhaps our biggest ‘win’ to date has been that the state appears willing to allow most pools to operate under the current 33% capacity limit in green, yellow, and - most significantly - in orange zones. Even in red zones, standalone pools may be allowed to operate at 25% capacity, though groups in the pool would be restricted to one individual. The NY State Department of Health is currently considering our appeal to increase the number of individuals allowed in each group, so that we may continue to teach lessons in this eventuality.

We have now turned our attention to local governments, notably in New York City, where the majority of our member schools operate, and where the state’s population is overwhelmingly concentrated. One concern is that local governments may impose greater restrictions than the state requires. City swim schools were ‘victims’ of this as summer turned to fall, when the city elected to keep indoor pools shuttered until September 30th -- months after the state allowed pools to reopen on June 11th. Despite many attempts to reach the city’s Department of Health during this time, their reasoning for the extended closure remained opaque.

Based upon the virus’s continued spread, along with the vaccine rollout, It’s possible that local governments could once again enact stricter regulations than those passed down by the state. The situation remains ever-fluid. Our strategy, therefore, is to lay the groundwork for the city in collaboration with the state’s Department of Health. Then, via our lobbyists, we will be able to present our ‘case’ to local governments, with data-backed research that the risks associated with closing pools are greater than those associated with keeping them open.

While insiders in the governor’s office feel we may not need to worry about “red zones”, given recent trends in our region, this virus has taught us that there are no guarantees.

Therefore, our united coalition will contine to stay engaged and proactive until we have all done our part in putting COVID-19 behind us.

Brendan O’Melveny, Founder, New York Water Safety Coalition; Chief Aquatics Officer, Imagine Swimming, Inc. Brendan has been teaching swimming to infants, children, and adults for over two decades. With extensive training and certifications from the United States Swim School Association, the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, the American Red Cross, and others, Brendan oversees the Flagship Operations and Staff Development departments at Imagine Swimming in NYC. He founded the New York Water Safety Coalition in 2020, is frequently featured as an Aquatics expert on local and National television, and has spoken at the U.S. Swim School Association conference. New York Water Safety Coalition Established in 2020, the New York Water Safety Coalition is an alliance of New York swim schools working together to fight drowning by increasing access to swimming pools and formal swim lessons across the state.