Dante Gaines pulled a red wagon with two gallon jugs of water from a West Baltimore distribution site on Tuesday morning. His neighborhood of Harlem Park was among those advised to boil tap water by city officials on Labor Day. Gaines, who lives with five other people, has never experienced a boil water advisory and was frustrated by the situation.
“Hopefully the city will get better at responding to emergencies like this,” Gaines said. “Hopefully the mayor can do something because as you can see, he ain’t down here either.”
Dozens of residents across the affected neighborhoods stood in line at three distribution sites in West Baltimore. The Baltimore City Department of Public Works discovered E. coli bacteria after routine testing on Friday and confirmed by a second test on Saturday. Officials didn’t start recommending residents to boil their water until Monday afternoon. By Tuesday, communities across southwest Baltimore County were advised to boil tap water as a cautionary measure, including Arbutus, Halethorpe and Lansdowne.
Baltimore City Health Department advised residents to monitor symptoms of illness from bacterial such as diarrhea, cramps, nausea headaches or high fever. No residents have reported illnesses related to the water contamination, according to the city.
While residents were promised at least three gallons per household by the city’s department of public works, most were allocated only two gallons Tuesday morning.
That’s not enough water for Gaines and his family but it’s better than nothing, he said. He’s never experienced issues with water quality before though sometimes it does look discolored.
“You may have to wait for a little bit, but nothing like this,” he said.
As of 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the city distributed 172,000 bottles of water to residents and all three sites will open again on Wednesday morning.
Officials are testing the water systems yet again to check if remediation measures such as adding more chlorine to the water treatment plants which flow into the residential pipes or flushing out fire hydrants with potentially contaminated water makes a difference. Another 24 water samples were collected on Monday but the results have not yet come in.
The city’s department of public works regularly assesses 90 locations throughout the water distribution system.
“Which equates to about 360 samples each month,” said Jason Mitchell, director of Baltimore City’s Department of Public Works during WYPR’s Midday program.
Mitchell said that the department sampled 19 different locations and got its first positive test for E. coli on Friday. A second test on Saturday was also positive in the Harlem Park and Sandtown neighborhoods.
The city informed the Maryland Department of the Environment about the first round of water samples contaminated with E. coli bacteria and the state agency has been working with the city to deal with the issue.
On Sunday, a third water sample was tested at the fire department’s engine house along the 1300 block of West Fayette Street and came back positive for E. coli.
“All other locations had negative tests, which means there was no form of E. coli or any other contaminants within the water supply itself,” Mitchell said.
Then the water system both upstream and downstream of the contaminated site in West Baltimore was tested and the police stations along the 1000 block of North Mount Street and the 900 block of North Carey Street were also positive for E. coli bacteria. Officials assert that there’s no issues with the wastewater treatment plant.
“This was not a result of our wastewater treatment plant,” Mitchell said.
But it was not immediately clear how the water had become contaminated.
“We had a water main break in that area, and that could be a potential location. We’re looking at our valves, then we'll be checking our chlorinated levels,” he said.
DPW officials plan to lift the boil water notice as soon as the water has been tested as safe to drink.
In the meantime, residents like Shannon Hamber will continue using bottled water. Hamber carried home two gallons of water for her family of six people from a water distribution site on West Fayette Street in Harlem Park.
Hamber already bought bottled water at the store but noticed the distribution line and snagged some for her family. She’s wary of just boiling water before giving it to young children.
“Because we’ve got babies,” she said. “They still gotta feed their babies and stuff like that.”
