BALTIMORE — Officials unveiled the 2019 Harbor Heartbeat report Wednesday morning, shedding light on the health of Baltimore's most prominent body of water.
The annual report provides updates on the Waterfront Partnership's journey to making Baltimore's Inner Harbor safe for swimming and fishing.
The report is produced by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore as part of the Healthy Harbor Initiative.
According to the report, the harbor scored well for fecal bacteria for the second year in a row.
"That means that there was less sewage pollution in our waterways for the past two years than there had been previously,” said Healthy Harbor director Adam Lindquist. “That's really exciting because we hope to one day soon host a swim event in the harbor."
Officials say that improvement can be attributed to the fact that Baltimore City and Baltimore County are spending millions of dollars to make repairs to the sewage system.
The report also shows that the number of dry weather sewer overflows caused by clogs in the system did not increase in the city, and decreased by a third in the county compared to 2017.
