Blue Water Baltimore’s latest Water Quality Report Card is out today, with results from its testing of Baltimore’s streams and rivers that the group calls “alarming” and “urgent.”

It reports that Baltimore Harbor, the Tidal Patapsco, and the Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls watersheds – all of which had failing grades for overall ecosystem health in the 2023 report – showed worse grades in 2024.

More concerning, says the watchdog group, are long-term worsening water quality trends despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on infrastructure fixes and environmental programs.

The Harbor,  Patapsco and Gwynns Falls all showed declines in overall ecological health between 2013 and 2024.

There were a few encouraging bright spots, including the puzzling fact that the Jones Falls watershed’s overall scores over that same time period show a modest “improving trend.”

But overall, the data paint a discouraging picture of worsening water quality, say leaders of the group, which has been sampling and testing area waterways for the past 15 years.

“It’s incredibly disappointing,” said Alice Volpitta, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper for Blue Water Baltimore. “Though, I’m not surprised in some ways.”

“We’ve been seeing lackluster clean water enforcement for many years – a trend that really started under the Hogan administration and never fully recovered,” she continued. “The damage done by gutting an entire agency is felt for many terms after that administration ends.”

“We’ve been seeing lackluster clean water enforcement for many years”  – Alice Volpitta, Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper.

She pointed to a 2022 report by environmental groups that found pollution enforcement in Maryland steadily declined over the last two decades and plummeted sharply when Larry Hogan was governor.

What’s needed is properly fund agencies and renewed efforts to “rebuild the roster of inspectors and permit writers,” she said. “We don’t need new laws, we need to enforce the Clean Water Act and the other laws we already have.”

Fast-rising Phosphorus

Introducing this year’s report card, the group noted the evolution of its monitoring program from a handful of bacteria samples in the Baltimore Harbor to a full suite of water-health parameters at 51 stations in the waterways throughout the region.

Each station is scored from 0-100% on the following factors: chlorophyll, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and total nitrogen and phosphorus. The higher the score, the healthier the waterway.

The data in this report, reflecting 2024 sampling, indicate improvements in nitrogen content and water clarity in streams and Baltimore Harbor.

But there were many concerning indicators, including elevated chlorophyll levels, dissolved salts and minerals and phosphorus.

Of most concern to Volpitta were the increasing levels of phosphorus, which can cause explosive growth of aquatic plants and algae, potentially leading to low dissolved oxygen concentrations, which can cause fish kills and harm other aquatic life.

“They’re worsening at the quickest pace of any parameter that we’re seeing – that’s like the strongest the most persistent correlation, and I really wonder why,” she said. “It’s beyond annual rainfall levels, so it’s not to do just with weather patterns – there is something really going on here.”

Stormwater runoff, she said, is the most likely culprit behind the increases in phosphorus and conductivity (the measurement of dissolved salts and minerals) all of which attach to sediment that washes into waterways from development and construction.

“At the end of the day, this is yet another story about needing to get a better handle on the volume and quality of stormwater that’s entering our local waterways,” she said.

Sewage Plant Role?

What about releases of treated wastewater sewage from the area’s two sewage treatment plants, another potential of phosphorous?

Volpitta wasn’t sure about the possible role of the Back River plant in Baltimore County, the largest sewage plant in the state, which releases treated wastewater into the river and ultimately Chesapeake Bay.

“From what I understand, the effluent that’s coming out – the quality of the water that they’re discharging – is generally meeting permit terms at this point,” she said.

• Activist is happy to get a grant, but lingering “terrible odor” from Back River sewage plant leaves her wary (4/16/24)

City and state officials last month offered an upbeat description of improvements at the long-troubled Back River and Patapsco sewage plants, as they touted $1.7 million in grants to community organizations as part of a consent decree to settle pollution lawsuits.

But a member of one of those grant recipient groups, Desiree Greaver of the Backriver Restoration Committee, said she was thrilled about the money but not quite ready to celebrate.

“There is just still such a terrible odor around the plant when you drive by,” she said.

Swim and Fish in the Harbor?

As it did in the 2023 data, Baltimore Harbor posted a failing overall water quality grade in 2024, with a score of 49, slightly lower than the previous year.

Scores in the 40-59 range mean the water quality is “fair,” with a mix of good and poor levels for the different indicators.

For example, at the harbor, dissolved oxygen readings at many sampling stations there were at or near desired levels in 2024. But measures of nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorophyll and water clarity were only fair. Volpitta said these grades show much work needs to be done.

“The reality is that we’re really only achieving water quality standards like half the time in most of our harbor stations,” Volpitta said.

“An urban waterway is subjected to both predictable but also unpredictable sewage discharges”  – Alice Volpitta.

What, in that case, to make of the promotion by City Hall and the Waterfront Partnership of the idea of people swimming in the harbor?

Before a gaggle of media last June, more than 150 people jumped into the murky waters off Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point for a Harbor Splash event organized to declare and celebrate progress made toward cleaning up the city’s famously polluted waterfront.

Among them were Mayor Brandon Scott and assorted cabinet members, plus P. David Bramble, the businessman behind the plan to build an apartment tower and offices at the water’s edge at Harborplace.

Asked if such activity is safe, Volpitta says her group’s role is to provide the public with the best information possible and let individuals make up their own minds.

“They need to understand the risks of coming into contact with an urban waterway that’s subjected to both predictable but also unpredictable sewage discharges,” she said.

• Pressed about jumping into the harbor, Mayor Scott and others admit it’s still unsafe and illegal outside of organized events (6/24/24)

Watching the weather (heavy storms can slosh pollutants into streams or the harbor) and checking websites for recent pollution levels are some of the ways to make these decisions.

But sewage overflows can sometimes happen in dry weather.

And even checking the website that Blue Water Baltimore maintains with the latest bacteria readings – baltimorewaterwatch.org – might not tell you about incoming sewage since the website’s data is posted a day late.

“It takes 24 hours to incubate and grow, so that you can properly do the test,” she said, ” which means you have the best available information possible the next day.”