Maryland may be suffering through one of its worst droughts ever, but Baltimore-area residents hooked up to the city's water system have little cause to worry that their faucets will run dry anytime soon.
Despite assertions by state officials that all of Maryland is gripped by a water crisis, the regional network of reservoirs and pipelines developed by Baltimore over the past century has secured enough of the precious liquid to last well into next year, even if the skies yield not another drop, its overseer says.
"Our system is designed to survive a year without rain," says George G. Balog, Baltimore's public works director. "Who would anticipate a year without rain? That's why I call ours a drought-proof system."
That's no idle boast, according to independent experts. At least on paper, the Baltimore area's water system is the least vulnerable in the state to droughts, says John J. Boland, professor of geography and environmental engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.
And for that, credit goes to a cadre of engineers who persuaded the city time and again to splurge on costly and sometimes controversial water-supply projects, particularly the 38-mile pipeline now tapping the Susquehanna River for thirsty Baltimoreans.
"It was, I would say, a bold and creative approach," Boland concludes.
With the Susquehanna pipeline furnishing 100 million gallons of water daily to the city and surrounding counties, the drain on the city's three reservoirs in Baltimore and Carroll counties has been cut in half, Balog says.
Liberty, Loch Raven and Prettyboy reservoirs were approaching half-empty overall when the city turned on its pumps in Harford County two weeks ago to begin drawing Susquehanna water from the lake created by the Conowingo Dam.
But even in their depleted state, the three city reservoirs still hold nearly 38 billion gallons, city officials say. That is enough to supply the system's 1.8 million customers for at least three more months -- and quite likely until the beginning of next year, even in the improbable event that there is no letup in the current dry spell. The city's water engineers had estimated a five-month supply remaining just before turning on the Susquehanna pumps.
As low as the reservoirs are now -- Prettyboy is two-thirds empty and Liberty almost 60 percent drained -- city officials say they have been lower several times, notably during droughts in the 1960s and mid-'80s. Outdoor water-use restrictions were imposed in some parts of the Baltimore area during those dry spells.
265 million gallons a day
Area residents and businesses have been using about 265 million gallons a day this month. That is down 20 percent from the average daily use in July, before Gov. Parris N. Glendening issued his Aug. 4 order declaring a drought emergency and imposing statewide curbs on outdoor water uses.
The rain-starved rivers and streams that feed the region's reservoirs, though flowing at about one-third the normal rate, are still recharging the lakes with 65 million gallons a day, city officials say.
With the Susquehanna supplying another 100 million gallons per day, the reservoirs are losing about 100 million gallons per day.
Even continuing this daily deficit, 38 billion gallons could theoretically last a year. But officials note that only about half of the reservoir supply can be drawn easily from the lakes without causing water-quality and distribution problems.
So with the additional water from the Susquehanna, the usable supply on hand would last about six months. Without the Susquehanna water, the daily deficit is about 200 million gallons, reducing the easily usable supply to about three months.
"It's a pretty secure supply even without the Susquehanna," says Boland, who has studied water systems in Maryland and is a consultant to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which serves Montgomery and Prince George's counties.
Roots of system
Baltimore's water supply has not always been so secure.
In the city's infancy in the first half of the 19th century, drinking water was furnished by a private company, which tapped the Jones Falls and distributed water via wooden pipes. Springhouses and fountains scattered around the town served those who did not subscribe to the Baltimore Water Co.
Public dissatisfaction with the company prompted the city to buy it in 1854, making water supply solely a municipal responsibility.
There were some missteps in the growing city's early quest for water. Its first reservoir, Lake Roland, was found to be inadequate and contaminated shortly after it was filled in 1862. Elected officials had ignored their own engineers in choosing to dam the Jones Falls because it was the cheapest option, when the experts had urged tapping the more distant but far more abundant Gunpowder and Patapsco rivers.
An extended drought in 1869 prompted the city to place a temporary pumping station on the Gunpowder and build a dam there in 1881 to hold more water. Secondary reservoirs were excavated at Montebello and at Lake Clifton, all connected by a network of underground water tunnels and pumping stations.
"By 1885, the Baltimore water system was one of the most advanced and extensive in the country," wrote historian Louis F. Gorr in a 1976 issue of Baltimore Engineer, a monthly publication of the Engineering Society.
In 1912, the city built a new dam farther upstream on the Gunpowder. Annexation of a swath of Baltimore County prompted the city to raise the crest of that dam -- the Loch Raven Dam -- to its current 240 feet above sea level in 1918. About the same time, the city built its first filtration plant at Lake Montebello.
On the heels of the region's worst drought ever recorded, the city in 1936 built Prettyboy Dam farther up the Gunpowder as a backup reservoir. Federal public works money helped complete the project during the Depression.
World War II sparked an industrial boom in Baltimore, prompting the city to search for a new supply to meet the growing demand for water. It looked west this time, building Liberty Dam on the North Branch of the Patapsco between Carroll and Baltimore counties in 1954.
Throughout, the city's political leaders were guided by the water engineers in the Department of Public Works, as well as by teams of independent academics and private consultants.
Most noted among those was Abel Wolman, the father of modern sanitary engineering, who helped perfect a formula for purifying water with chlorine in 1915. In addition to his teaching at Hopkins and his international consulting, Wolman, who died in 1989, served as an adviser to Baltimore's mayors throughout most of the 20th century.
In the early 1950s, with planners projecting that Baltimore would need enough water for 2.2 million people by the end of the century, Wolman and two other engineering experts recommended tapping the Susquehanna.
Long regarded as the city's "ultimate and inexhaustible" source of water, the Chesapeake Bay's main tributary flows 450 miles through three states, furnishing water and electricity throughout the mid-Atlantic region. The city had negotiated a deal with Philadelphia Electric Co. in the 1920s empowering Baltimore to draw water from the river just upstream from the Conowingo hydroelectric dam.
There were those who questioned whether the Susquehanna pipeline was necessary, especially since it would cost $35 million to build.
Water for the future
"My father argued very strongly that the definition of necessary was if you want to be secure, then you want to look for the supply at the next step," says M. Gordon "Reds" Wolman, Abel's son and also a professor of geography and environmental engineering at Hopkins.
Sometimes referred to as "The Big Inch," the steel and concrete pipeline is 9 feet in diameter.
Construction began in 1958, but what had been planned as a four-year project was prolonged three more years by labor troubles, a contractor's default and accidents. Eight months were lost when a spectacular collapse at the Conowingo intake dumped a giant crane into the river. A quagmire of mud in Harford County also slowed work, until a plastic-like chemical was injected into the ground to "freeze" the muck enough so that tunneling could continue.
With the pipeline's completion in 1965, the city drew 600 million gallons of water from the Susquehanna in 1966 and 17.6 billion gallons in 1967 as the region struggled through its second-most severe drought ever.
Boland, who was Anne Arundel County's chief of utilities at the time, recalls that the city's first use of river water provoked an outcry because the minerals and corrosiveness of it produced a reddish appearance. "The water is distinctly inferior to the quality of water in the Gunpowder and Patapsco," Boland says. "That is why the city is reluctant to use it."
The city has tapped the Susquehanna nine times since the pipeline was finished, most recently in 1993. Officials say they have learned how to treat and blend it with reservoir water to ensure it meets drinking-water standards and to diminish complaints about its taste and look.
Meanwhile, the regional population is 400,000 below planners' earlier projections, and water use has grown more slowly than expected -- in part because of the decline of heavy industry.
But that has only helped to provide an extra margin of security for area water customers. The cushion has come in handy, as the city's three reservoirs have lost about 15 percent of their capacity over the years, apparently the result of filling with sediment brought in by the feeder streams.
Susquehanna running low
Boland says that all cities, Baltimore included, ought to be working from drought-management plans that would help them avoid severe water shortages by gradually curtailing unnecessary uses. City officials say they have one, but have yet to produce it despite repeated requests from The Sun.
And if the drought persists or worsens through the fall and winter, the city's Susquehanna lifeline may be squeezed.
On Aug. 13, the river's flow had dropped so low that the commission that oversees it was within hours of ordering an emergency release of water from flood-control dams in Pennsylvania. If the river had dropped after that, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission would have moved to ration or cut off withdrawals, such as those through the pipeline to Baltimore.
The city would oppose that, but it's not clear who would prevail. A decision is pending in federal court in a year-old lawsuit over whether the city can act unilaterally in drawing the river's water or has to seek commission approval.
But weekend storms dumped almost 2 inches of rain around Harrisburg, Pa., and more fell late last week. The river's flow has rebounded some -- for now.
"I'm happy that Baltimore is able to use the Susquehanna," says Paul Swartz, executive director of the Susquehanna commission.
And while recent rains have eased his concern, Swartz warns: "I don't think we're by any means out of the woods. It's going to take a lot of rain to get us out of this drought."
Sun research librarians Dee Lyon, Paul McCardell and Jeanne Packard contributed to this article.