Laguna Beach Police recently released a statement that the pool contamination at a Pacific Marine Mammal Center pool was an accident, and not a crime. Employees accidently over-chlorinated the sea lion pool said police.

Police closed their investigation and said that it was clearly an accident, and not a crime. The incident injured 17 sea lions at a Southern California wildlife center in April.

The statement by the police has come nearly two months after the employees arrived at work on April 28 and discovered that 17 rescue sea lions had burned their eyes after swimming in one of the center’s pools.

After the employees discovered the contamination, the sea lions were immediately shifted to a safer area and the pool water was drained and refilled. The animals after complete recovery were released back into the ocean.

Immediately after getting the information, police investigated current and former employees, volunteers, the center's cleaning crew, pool maintenance staff and witnesses.

Police also reviewed surveillance footage and collected fingerprints, water samples and DNA from the center. Later analysis of the pH levels of the contaminated pool helped determine that the incident was a mistake.

Initially, the chlorine contamination at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center was suspected to be intentional, but the Laguna Beach Police Department said in a statement Thursday that the pool was accidentally over-chlorinated by an employee who had access to the pool filtration system.

Sgt. Tim Kleiser said, “We were looking at this originally as a criminal case. We investigated it and found that this was not a criminal act, just an unfortunate mistake”.

Wildlife center officials said that they are concerned about the results of the investigation and are reviewing the report.