There’s an army barracks attached to a local village that allows the public to use its heated outdoor swimming pool in the summer. I often assumed it was too much chlorine that was the problem with stinging eyes.
But, according to chemist Howard Gosling that typical swimming pool smell actually comes from compounds known as chloramines that form when chlorine reacts with any urine or sweat in the water. Nice. It’s the chloramines not the chlorine that make your eyes sting.
I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about why the army pool brings tears to the eyes. Maybe the CO should drop in some of that chemical that turns the water blue of there are any guilty privates swimming.