PHILADELPHIA — Three children were shocked by electricity Friday in a city-owned swimming pool in Philadelphia, fire officials said.

Firefighters were called to the pool around 1:15 p.m. for a report that swimmers had been shocked by an electrical current, Philadelphia Fire Executive Chief Peter Crespo said.

Crespo said the children were conscious at the scene. Susan Slawson, a city recreation commissioner, said they were in stable condition.

Firefighters cut power to the pool, which was closed indefinitely. A city fire marshal and representatives from the electric utility Peco and the city's Parks & Recreation and Licenses & Inspections departments were on the scene to try to determine the cause.

Crespo raised the possibility of an equipment malfunction.

Slawson said a lifeguard noticed that a boy “appeared to be in distress” as he held a metal railing while climbing steps in the shallow end, and a girl who held onto the boy's leg also appeared to be hurt. The lifeguard tried to get the boy out of the pool, but detected an electrical current and asked that the power be shut off.

Slawson said CPR was performed on one of the children.

A third child also reported feeling an electrical current and was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

A total of 12 children were in the pool at the time, Slawson said.

MATHER — Two state agencies have come up with one solution to two longstanding environmental problems in Pennsylvania’s most southwestern county.The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources plans to dig up sediment from the dry lake bed at Ryerson Station State Park, while the Department of Environmental Protection will use the dirt to bury a 70-acre coal waste pile in Greene County that has bedeviled environmentalists since the mine that produced it closed 50 years ago.The 62-acre Duke Lake was drained in 2005 because its dam was leaking. Sediment from the lake must be dug out so the lake and dam can be restored. And the resulting dirt is the perfect top layer to cover the Mather coal dump, state officials decided.The mine has an infamous history as the site of the state’s second-worst mining disaster, when 195 miners were killed on May 19, 1928. Investigators came to believe that methane gas and coal dust ignited, causing an explosion.