Four days after Brew story, city finds and fixes source of month-long water leak
Worried about an icy hazardous street and a future sinkhole, a Baltimore resident had made seven reports to the city but still the water flowed, 24/7, up from a hole and down the hill
Above: City crew today replaces pipe that caused a continuous five-week water leak in the 3000 block of Evergreen Avenue in northeast Baltimore. (Jen Ogle)
Well, the river of city water that has been gushing up from a hole in the street in front of Jen Ogle’s northeast Baltimore house – for five weeks straight – has finally been stopped.
The fix came four days after The Brew sent a series of questions to the Baltimore Department of Public Works (DPW) and published a story about Ogle’s fruitless efforts to get them to help:
Ogle made seven calls to the city’s 311 call center.
She was worried about the hazardous sheet of ice that formed in the 3000 block of Evergreen Avenue during the recent cold snap and the possibility of a sinkhole if the water kept streaming through the roadway.
But although work crews came out three times, tearing up the street and leaving ugly patches, none of them were able to locate and stop the 24/7 flow – until today.
Ogle told The Brew that workers showed up and replaced a roughly 15-foot section of pipe, patched the spot and now there’s no river on Evergreen Avenue.
“Fourth time’s the charm, I guess,” she said, in an email. “The patch is huge and unsightly, but so far seems dry!”
We’re still waiting for DPW to get back to us with answers to our questions about the whole debacle, including “Why wasn’t it fixed before?”
UPDATE: DPW’ Response received 3/7/25
“On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) encountered significant challenges in identifying and addressing the water main on the 3000 block of Evergreen Ave. DPW did not find a leak onsite during their first visit. The crew went back out on February 7, equipped with specialized leak detection equipment to investigate the water main break. During this timeframe, the exact leak location could not be determined, so DPW marked an exploratory evacuation on the asphalt for further review. Then again, on February 10, DPW excavated the exploratory location and still the leak could not be identified. This caused a delay in repairing the leak when it was first reported.”
Below is video showing how the street leak looked last week:
System-wide Water Loss
“How much water does the city lose annually to these breaks, leaks and sinkholes?” we also asked.
According to the most recent data, from 2015, the city was “losing” more than a third of its treated water to these cracks and ruptures.
DPW officials responded today saying that, “based on DPW’s Fiscal Year 2023 internal audit, the estimated loss from the water distribution system is 25.91 percent.”
Below is the section from that report with the pertinent data.
From Baltimore DPW’s 2022-2023 water audit, the data pertaining to water loss, aka “non-revenue water.” (Baltimore Department of Public Works)
We asked the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) about “water loss” statewide and this was their answer:
“Community Water Systems that have water appropriation permits and that serve over 10,000 people are required as a condition of that permit to do water audits. We regulated based on a 10% water loss goal, however that is used as our starting point of reviewing the water loss data and helping systems determine the best course of action to address these numbers.
Baltimore City is statutorily exempt from having to obtain a water appropriation permit, therefore they are not required to submit a water audit. Baltimore City voluntarily submitted a water audit (attached) in 2023, however, this audit was completed using a different methodology that doesn’t produce a simple percentage.”