New York City Has Just Approved a Floating Pool in Its East River | Hacker News Reader

New York City Has Just Approved a Floating Pool in Its East River

architecturaldigest.com

38 pointsfortran7716 comments

> Without any chemicals and additives, the pool filters more than 600,000 gallons of East River water that floats through the pool’s barriers every day.

...how? I'm disappointed that they didn't even attempt a handwave explanation here.

Architectural Digest is generally known more for 40 pounds of ultra-high-end luxury advertisement per issue than pool filtration hardware

https://pluspool.org/pool/design/

Seems like it is a giant strainer. The walls are permeable and the river is supposed to push the water through the pool/filter to produce clean water.

They say it's "Like a giant strainer dropped in the river," I love that image they have there, they make it look like a giant deep fryer basket, handle and everything!

Maybe they have a lot Brita filters? Those don't use (liquid) chemicals, although they're activated charcoal which is carbon, and carbon is a chemical element. Insert the Batman slap meme here for people who use the word "chemicals" when they mean harmful or artificial chemicals.

A quick google says lava rocks also filter water.

I wonder why they chose that inconvenient shape, a square would take the same length of sides to make, it would just need a wider floor, and it would be able to contain more people.

Brita filters might actually work. The outside surface of the pool could be studded with around 9000 screw threads onto which screw brita filters. That's one filter per square foot. Now we just need to pump some water out of the pool to lower the water level inside and water will flow through the filters from the dirty side to the clean side. The pumping could be done the conventional way with electric motors, or you could rig up something clever with one way valves that lets the wave action do the pumping.

You would need divers to replace the filters on a regular basis, but with a low enough flow per filter they could last a long time.

The main problem would be biofouling of the filters, but a clever filter design might actually use the biofilms as part of the filtration medium.

Maybe that’s it. Greater wall surface area for lower pool volume means that the filters can be less efficient.

> artificial chemicals

What is the distinction between an artificial and non-artificial chemical?

Not op, but I assume op means chemicals that are refined from naturally occurring material or synthesized from other synthesized or naturally occurring materials.

Very little information on that, though the article's heavy on "filtering water through the pool" and suggesting the technology's already been developed.

I've dug through the site a bit and looked online w/o finding obvious methods. There might be related patent filings.

Most swimming pools use multi-level filtration systems, making heavy use of sand, occasionally diatomaceous earth (https://www.homequestionsanswered.com/what-is-a-diatomaceous...), possibly activated charcoal, and perhaps a final stage using ozone or UV purification (ozone might pass the "artificial chemical" test, UV pretty certainly would). East River / Hudson River is pretty badly polluted, with contamination ranging from raw sewage to household and industrial waste, farming run-off, oil, various street run-off, and more. That said, people do swim in it regularly.

My read is that the pressure differential would be maintaine by egress rather than intake pumps, though both might be used. Egress pumps would be interacting with cleaner water.

Concerns would be particles, possible organic contaminants, and of course, biologicallly-active contamination (bacteria & viruses), as well as river/sea life. (The East River is brackish, a mix of fresh and salt water.)

Ordinarily, filtration systems require regular cleaning and replenishment, generally through periodic backwash cycles, and ultimately medium replacement.

One rendering places the pool just northeast of the Brooklyn Bridge (it's built out of stone, so very obviously not the Manhattan Bridge. The other rendering places the pool just southwest of the Brooklyn Bridge (also visible in the rendering, but from the opposite direction).

The article states, both in text and in an image caption: "The pool will be located just north of the Manhattan Bridge." Which doesn't match either of the renderings.

So where is the pool actually located? The Navy Yard starts pretty soon after DUMBO, so I guess it's going to be on the shore of DUMBO somwhere?

The article also states "the Manhattan Bridge, which connects Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood to Brooklyn’s Dumbo". Which is wrong. The Manhattan Bridge connects Lower East Side/Chinatown/FiDi to DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass).

Would it be so hard to get a story even vaguely correct before publishing?

This article, which I think broke the new, has a rendering it claims is of the approved location ("East River, just north of the Manhattan Bridge on the Lower East Side"):

https://www.curbed.com/2021/05/first-look-plus-pool-east-riv...

If the city can build a subway station on Randalls Island as part of Triboro RX, that location (which already has many athletic fields) would be a good place for a large complex of swimming pools.

I wonder how they plan to clean the filter

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