[Chat] Water Quality

[Stephen J Gewirtz]

I have not noticed anything, but that has been reported to be a 
characteristic of water from the Susquehanna.  I have heard that the 
City is getting ready to design and build a purification system to 
utilize Susquehanna water all the time.  The rationale is that this way, 
the reservoirs will stay more full as a drought approaches, and 
therefore the City will not need to draw as much Susquehanna water when 
the drought comes and more Susquehanna water is needed by other users.  
It makes sense to me.

When I moved to Maryland in 1966, the New York / New Jersey region was 
in the midst of a drought, and there were messages at the bottom of each 
column in the NY Times telling people to conserve water.  Here, they 
were saying that if the drought lasted much longer, they would have to 
use Susquehanna water and might have to put in restrictions.  Of course 
now there is a much bigger population using Baltimore City water 
(remember, the City supplies the County and then some).

I have read stories of how a whole family would take baths once a week.  
When I was a child, a shower every other day was the norm.  Now, we all 
shower every day.  So using lots of water is the norm -- about 100 
gallons per person per day.  Fortunately, we live in a region with 
plentiful water.  California went bananas when it had a 5 year drought, 
but the tree ring records show 100 year droughts there.

So I do not know if we are now using Susquehanna water, but if we are, 
that will explain what you have observed; when the City improves its 
water system to use Susquehanna water all the time, it will be using a 
purification system better designed for that specific water, and that 
will bring improvement.

Steve.


OldHouseHistory at aol.com wrote:

> Over the last few weeks, we have noticed  a very light brown water 
> coming from the taps....not a nice site.  We have new interior 
> plumbing, and have noticed some work being done on the 
> streets...anyone else getting slightly dirty water? 
>  
> Paul & Greg
>  
> Paul K. Williams
> Kelsey & Associates, Inc.
> Preserving Architectural History
> 2629 Guilford Avenue
> Baltimore, MD 21218
> 410-366-2629
> BaltimoreMarylandHistory.com <http://baltimoremarylandhistory.com/>
>
> 1929 13th Street, NW
> Washington, DC 20009
> 202-462-3389
> WashingtonHistory.com <http://washingtonhistory.com/>
>
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