Otherwise, they're an ecological nightmare of poisonous algae, deadly mosquito egg place, and spawn of the BLOB! Hopefully the original with Steve McQueen from 1958, and not that terrible 80s one with Matt Dillon's brother.
(This skater goes by the name of the Blob, just in case you were wondering about the absurd reference)
But anyway, according to the nytimes, these skaters are doing a public service, by draining the pools and skating them. Also, they are wholesome and respectful. Yeah, see how long that lasts (Woodstock --> Altamont).
Once he [Joe the Peacock, protagonist of this tale] has found a pool he likes — he prefers older, kidney-shaped ones — he drains the water into the gutter with his pool pump, sometimes setting up orange cones on the sidewalk to appear more official. Later, he returns to shovel out the muck, and then lets the pool dry. In order to maintain a sense of public service, the skateboarders adhere to basic rules: no graffiti, pack out trash and never mess with or enter the houses.
A day or two later, the skating begins, often in short bursts during the workday to avoid disturbing neighbors or attracting police attention. Twice in recent weeks, Mr. Peacock said, the police caught the skateboarders in an empty pool and demanded they leave but did not issue citations.
Mr. Peacock said he was helping the environment. “I’m doing the city a favor,” he said, by emptying fetid pools.
This kinda contradicts earlier statements by a mosquito abatement district manager (man, how did you get him for pull quotes!?), but nevermind.
Once he finds a problem pool, his workers treat it with a combination of insecticide and mosquitofish, pinky-size carp that find mosquito larvae delectable. But they do not empty any pools, he said, because in a good rain, an empty pool can be partially lifted out of the hole by groundwater, he said. “I’ve seen them float up a foot or two,” Mr. Rusmisel said.
Floating pools! Now that's something I'd like to see.
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