A pair of long-delayed projects to protect drinking water sources at two Northwest Baltimore reservoirs are complete, public works officials announced Thursday, at last bringing the city into line with a nearly two decade-old federal requirement.
With massive, underground water tanks at Baltimore’s Lake Ashburton and Druid Lake reservoirs now finished, public works officials said much-anticipated plans to redevelop the park space and open-air lakes at both sites are on pace for completion by the summer of 2024.
Thursday’s announcement comes after years of delays to meet federal standards at the two sites. In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency imposed end-of-year deadlines for the city to get tanks into operation at both sites. The city was under a Dec. 30 deadline to achieve “functional use” of underground tanks at the Druid Lake reservoir in Druid Hill Park, while the EPA granted a brief, two week extension when it became clear the city would not hit its Nov. 30 deadline for completion of the Lake Ashburton project.
The tanks at the Ashburton site came into service on Dec. 7, while work at Druid Lake was finished Thursday, ahead of its EPA deadline. A spokesperson for the EPA confirmed completion of the two projects.
The EPA’s mandate came in the wake of Baltimore’s E. coli contamination scare last September. On top of deadlines for the Lake Ashburton and Druid Lake projects, the agency required that the Department of Public Works begin performing rigorous testing for certain contaminants in the open-air reservoirs. That process exposed contamination of the parasite cryptosporidium in the water system in late September.
Weekly testing since the discovery of cryptosporidium have all come back negative, public works officials said in a news release Thursday, adding that the Maryland Department of Health and Maryland Department of the Environment have dropped the precautionary drinking water advisories, now that the city is no longer reliant on open-air reservoirs. Following the discovery of cryptosporidium, the state had suggested anyone with a “severely weakened” immune system stick to bottled, boiled or filtered water.
In a statement, the Department of Public works noted that completion of water tanks at the two sites brings an end Baltimore’s reliance on open-air reservoirs for the storage of treated drinking water. Interim Director Richard Luna said Thursday’s milestone, six years in the making, “adds a higher level of protection to the Baltimore region’s water supply.”
“[This] investment will help to ensure the continued delivery of high-quality water to residents and water customers for generations,” Luna said.
Required under federal regulations for open-air drinking water sources dating back to 2006, the projects to bury tanks at Ashburton and Druid Lake are designed to protect the city’s water supply from contamination sources, such as animal droppings or litter. The EPA gave jurisdictions until 2009 to get approval for their compliance plans, allowing an option to either cover or treat drinking water sources.
On its road to completing the Ashburton and Druid Lake projects, Baltimore missed numerous federal deadlines, finally prompting the EPA to put a foot down in May.
Three other open-air drinking water sources managed by the city reached compliance with federal standards years ago: The Towson reservoir met federal regulations in 2013, the Montebello reservoir in 2014 and the Guilford reservoir in 2019.
The Department of Public Works reported in May that the total cost of installing the tanks is about $135 million at Druid Lake and about $137 million at Lake Ashburton.
While the city continues to pursue extensive redevelopments for the areas on top of the storage tanks at both locations, the EPA order only requires the underground tanks to be functional. Plans for the redevelopment include new park space at both sites as well as an open Druid Lake for swimming and kayaking.
