A Florida high school swimming pool has been shut down indefinitely after a mess of iguanas has claimed it for themselves.
The Department of Health and the School District of Palm Beach County said they have closed the Lake Worth Beach High School pool for safety reasons, and it will remain closed indefinitely.
The school hasn’t had a swim team for about three years due to the iguanas, who have hijacked the facility. According to a statement from the school district, dozens of invasive green iguanas have descended upon the pool, pooping in the water, on the pool decks and nearby bleachers, and maintenance is simply not able to keep up with it.
Sally Walsh, who once taught swimming and held water exercise classes at the facility, said the iguanas took over starting around 2019.
“I would come early and clean their poop up,” Walsh said. “You could almost call it an industrial hazard.”
Iguanas carry salmonella bacteria in their intestines, which is spread to humans through their excrement and causes severe and sometimes life-threatening intestinal infections. The high school pool, which was built in 1961, fell into further disrepair during the pandemic, and it is currently showing its age with broken tiles, crumbling walls, and wobbly ladders.
With the arrival of the iguanas, Walsh said the pool is now too far gone. Despite efforts to maintain the pool, its filtration and chemical systems simply could not keep up with the contaminants left by the iguanas.
Photo credit: https://www.local10.com/news/ local/2024/12/09/iguanas-force-closure-of-floridahigh- school-pool-leaving-swim-team-dry/. According to Lake Worth Beach Commissioner Reinaldo Diaz, the iguana problem is not isolated to the high school swimming pool, and the city has spent more than $100,000 to combat them.
They’ve caused electrical blackouts, undermined a vital dam in West Palm Beach, and are a menace to South Florida’s 2,000 miles of levees and berms.
Lake Worth Beach has put up climb-resistant barriers to prevent the iguanas from climbing up power poles and damaging lines because a single animal can take out the power for an entire block.
The city also put up electric fencing in some areas after the iguanas caused a large-scale power outage two years ago, which left 1,400 people without power.
In West Palm Beach, the iguanas burrowed in the soft dirt around an aging dam, and in 2019, the city was forced to spend $1.8 million in emergency repairs after city officials noticed water seeping around the edges of a weir that controlled water delivery from a main canal.
“They’re everywhere, and they’re not going anywhere,” Diaz said. “Unfortunately, they’re a problem that’s here to stay.”
Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecology professor at the University of Florida, is also pessimistic about efforts to control the iguana population.
“Is this spreading and getting worse? The answer to that is absolutely yes,” Mazzotti said. “They are occurring in more places in greater numbers, and we are seeing the evidence of more impacts. In every way you look at it, it’s getting worse.”
David Cantley, who was the principal of Lake Worth High School from 1980 to 1999, said the pool’s closure was disappointing. In his time, it was a meeting place for swim team practices, adult water fitness programs, physical education classes, and summer swim lessons.
“But we didn’t have iguanas back in my day,” he said.
Iguanas are an exotic, non-native, unprotected species in Florida, meaning they can be trapped and killed without a permit. However, they are still causing enormous damage and represent a deepening challenge from individual homeowners to the caretakers of the state’s infrastructure.
“Are we going to do something about it? I think the better question is: Can we?” Mazzotti said. “We’ve gotten to the point where we are way past the opportunity to control the population in general.
