BALTIMORE — Getting sick right around the time a parasite was detected in the city's drinking water supply was enough to make Shawn Bateman and her husband switch to bottled water only.
"A couple days before the announcement came out, my husband and I noticed the water was tasting different. It tasted sour and viscus. And we thought maybe it was just us, maybe we were getting sick or something, maybe it was our tap itself. And then the announcement came out, and we were like, oh this makes sense," Bateman.
That was in September. The water has since been cleared by the DPW; no traces of the parasite cryptosporidium were found in any recent samples.
But between "crypto", and the E. coli scare last fall, Bateman doesn't want to take any chances.
When she heard about a University of Maryland studythat will allow people to test their water for free, she signed up right away.
"Yeah, I want to find out what exactly is in my water, and an independent study from a university I feel is more trustworthy than what the city is financing as far as their testing," said Bateman.
"We all - myself included - like to assume that when we turn on the tap, the water is safe, the water is clean," said Rianna Murray, assistant research professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. "And in the majority - like 99% of the time - it is, but there are contaminants that we could be ingesting that we just don't know about."
The university research team says it's also looking for "forever" chemicals, which scientists have recently discovered are even more harmful to human health, in even smaller amounts. The chemicals have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems.
"Basically because of their chemical structure, they persist forever and ever. They persist in water, they persist in soil. They don't go away easily. They don't break down easily. They aren't removed from our water easily," said Murray.
Anyone over the age of 18 who rents or owns a home in Maryland is eligible to participate in the study. It doesn't matter if you get water from a private well or a public source. Participants will be sent a free water testing kit.
They'll take samples at home and send them back to the research team either online or by mail. You can apply for the study here.
“We’re hoping to empower people but not make anybody scared. It’s more so about giving folks the information to make better or more informed decisions about their water and how to protect themselves," Murray said.
The team hopes to use the data to identify any water quality issues that have gone undetected, start a database for water quality in the state, and possibly even push for policies to better protect our drinking water.
“We're hoping this is sort of like a springboard almost, like a smaller pilot study, and we’re hoping to take these results and apply for more grants and more funding, and do even more sophisticated testing, testing more types of contaminants, maybe expand to the DMV," Murray said.
Good news for Baltimore's drinking water supply came earlier this month. Until then, the reservoirs at Druid Lake and Lake Ashburton were the only open-air reservoirs left in Baltimore, leaving them vulnerable to parasites. Now, the treated drinking water is stored in tanks underground. The Maryland Department of Environment says this eliminates the risk of cryptosporidium in the drinking water going forward.
"I think that's great. I think it should've been done seven years ago. The EPA had been giving them warnings about this and been saying this entire time that the reservoir has been open air, that it's not safe to drink, and that there needs to be testing."
In a press release, DPW said, "Work on both projects was subject to unavoidable and extensive delays due to unforeseen site conditions, worker shortages, and supply chain delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic."
The Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) also says, Baltimore City's drinking water is required to comply with EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act requirements, which regulate more that 90 contaminants. The City's water is routinely tested, and results are available through the annual Consumer Confidence Report.
In a statement to WMAR-2 News, a department spokesperson said, “Baltimore is currently in compliance with all SDWA [Safe Drinking Water Act] requirements, including limits on over 90 contaminants. MDE routinely inspects Baltimore's 3 water treatment plants and 2 drinking water laboratories. MDE also certifies their laboratories, licenses their water treatment plant operators and certifies their staff that collect drinking water samples.”
The Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) conducts continuous and extensive testing of drinking water before it is delivered to residents throughout the Baltimore region. Annually, DPW performs approximately 150,000 water quality analyses for more than 90 different water contaminants and our sampling is performed in accordance with the standards set forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
These findings are summarized in an annual Water Quality Report, which keeps residents informed about the quality of Baltimore’s water supply. Current and previous issues of the Water Quality Report, also referred to as a Consumer Confidence Report, are available online.
Residents with questions about drinking water quality, information in the Water Quality Report, or source water assessments, can contact one of DPW’s Water Quality Laboratories: Montebello, 410-396-6040; and Ashburton, 410-396-0150.