Proper supervision, adequate barriers, and education are excellent individual measures that can be taken to prevent drowning. However, there are also community wide prevention efforts that should be considered. One such effort is relevant legislation and subsequent enforcement. Many cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area enacted barrier code legislation in the early 1990’s (Flood, 1991). However, the City of Gilbert failed to pass their barrier code laws in the fall of 2001, and to date does not have any fencing laws. In many cities, the barrier codes only apply to pools installed after the legislation was passed. Another effort would be to enact legislation that requires isolation fencing on all pools, regardless of their installation date. Additionally, some city codes merely require a four-sided fence around the pool; it does not have to be an isolated fence. For these cases, the block or wood fence around the entire yard is adequate, with no inner fence being required. This too could be addressed by new legislation in an effort to diminish the hazards of backyard swimming pools. The follow up on creating legislation is enforcing the codes. Currently the State of Arizona monitors public and semi-public pools for barrier maintenance and conformity. This includes park pools, community pools, hotel/motel pools, and apartment pools. Fire departments can also inspect public and semi-public pools, and have the right to evacuate and close any pool not in conformance. However, these public and semi-public pools may only be inspected once or twice a year. No inspection is made on private pools, other than immediately after the pool is built. Inadequate manpower and money do not make it reasonable to check all the pools in the Valley on a routine basis, but perhaps this issue should be given more emphasis as a preventative measure.
