Reservoirs

Baltimore area residents began drinking water from the Susquehanna River yesterday, easing the demand on the region's rain-starved reservoirs.Meanwhile, Maryland officials carved out a few new exceptions to the state's water-use restrictions, yielding to complaints from owners of newly sodded lawns and athletic directors worried about injuries on rock-hard fields.Even so, the curbs continued to pinch businesses such as nurseries and landscapers, who said flower and plant sales already hurt by the drought have suffered more since the governor clamped down on water use last week.

Does your water taste better? It should.Public works officials in Baltimore said yesterday the city's water distribution system is no longer using water from the Susquehanna River.Public works spokesman Kurt Kocher said the pumps were shut off soon after Hurricane Floyd swept across the region Sept. 16 and dropped more than 10 billion gallons into the city's reservoirs.Many consumers had complained that the river water made the city's normally pleasant reservoir brew taste bad. But the river additive should be gone from the pipes.

Moving to head off Maryland's worsening water crisis, Gov. Parris N. Glendening ordered mandatory water-use restrictions yesterday for the first time in state history, banning lawn sprinklers and home car-washing and asking businesses to cut water consumption by 10 percent."

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.

For now, and at least through the next century, water supplied by the Triadelphia and Rocky Gorge reservoirs on the southern border of Howard County is expected to be clean and drinkable.But the threat of sprawl from Baltimore and Washington could eventually convert them into algae-filled wetlands with water unsuitable for human consumption.That is the concern of an official from the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), a state-authorized utility run by commissioners appointed by Prince George's and Montgomery county executives that has owned and operated the Triadelphia and Rocky Gorge reservoirs since they were built in the 1940s.

Does your water taste better? It should.Public works officials in Baltimore said yesterday the city's water distribution system is no longer using water from the Susquehanna River.Public works spokesman Kurt Kocher said the pumps were shut off soon after Hurricane Floyd swept across the region Sept. 16 and dropped more than 10 billion gallons into the city's reservoirs.Many consumers had complained that the river water made the city's normally pleasant reservoir brew taste bad. But the river additive should be gone from the pipes.

Does your water taste better? It should.Public works officials in Baltimore said yesterday the city's water distribution system is no longer using water from the Susquehanna River.Public Works spokesman Kurt Kocher said the pumps were shut off soon after Hurricane Floyd swept across the region Sept. 16 and dropped more than 10 billion gallons into the city's reservoirs.Many consumers had complained that the river water made the city's normally pleasant reservoir brew taste bad. But the river additive should be gone from the pipes.

The state's top environmental official has chastised Howard County officials for allowing developers to build too densely near two reservoirs and has suspended the county health officer's authority to approve plans.Jane T. Nishida, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), has expressed concern about the "cumulative impact" on the Triadelphia and T. Howard Duckett reservoirs, which are on the Patuxent River at the border with Montgomery County.State regulations require that homes be built on lots of at least 2 acres within 2,500 feet of reservoirs to curb the impact of septic systems and wells.

Call it the Big Water Switch.Harford County residents became the first in the Baltimore area yesterday to draw water from the Susquehanna River and slow the draining of the region's drought-depleted reservoirs.As most Harford residents slumbered Friday night, workers at the county's Abingdon Filtration Plant slowly cranked a valve closed, shutting the flow of water from Baltimore."We came out of it with flying colors, and we're in better condition now after the 10-hour shutdown," said Talad Said, plant superintendent.

Maryland's sparse rainfall over the past year -- nearly 40 percent below normal levels -- has created the state's worst drought in 70 years and no immediate relief is in sight, according to National Weather Service meteorologists.The drought has led several small Maryland communities to restrict water use. In some areas, residents have been banned from watering lawns, washing cars or using water for anything other than essential purposes.Meanwhile, worried farmers are hoping for enough rain to save their crops, while dairy and cattle farmers need rain to replenish withering pastures where their livestock graze.

After all this rain, Greg Koppenhoeffer of Ellicott City wondered whether Baltimore's reservoirs were full yet. He looked for numbers online but found none. The city hopes to post reservoir data on a new Web site sometime this summer. Call Public Works, and they'll say Loch Raven and Prettyboy are full. Liberty is rising at 98.9 percent. Combined, they're at 99.4 percent. Plenty.

Marylanders may see some welcome rain this weekend, but it's not expected to fully reverse what has become the driest start to a calendar year in 138 years of record-keeping in Baltimore. After nearly two months with only a few inches of snow and scant rainfall across most of Maryland, more than half the state officially fell into a drought this week. Dry weather that began in October has left streams flowing at record or near-record lows for this time of year, hydrologists say. Water tables are falling when they should be recharging, and farm fields and pastures are growing short of the moisture they'll need to support early growth after planting this spring.

For the past eight months, Luke Brackett has been part administrator, part lone ranger. Hired by Baltimore City in November to spearhead the creation of a new police force to protect the three city-owned reservoirs in Baltimore and Carroll counties, Brackett spends part of his days patrolling the watersheds and part interviewing applicants interested in joining his force. "I'm tasked with bringing the department to life," Brackett said. "We're still getting our feet wet, no pun intended."

Swimming in reservoirs illegal, unsafe Baltimore County fire and medical emergency officials remind residents that it is illegal and unsafe to swim in reservoirs. The county averages between five and 10 drownings and near-drownings annually, most of them involving children or people who decide to cool off in reservoirs or other bodies of water where swimming is illegal. www.bcps.org/schools/moving_tips.html for a list of required documents for registering a child. Parents of non-English-speaking children should call 410-887-6752 for registration information.

The creeks are full, the fields are soggy, and the drought that had Maryland farmers and water managers so worried late last year is finally behind us. "Certainly in Maryland, there's no drought left," said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs. "It's hard to get 8 inches of rain and still have drought." Improved rainfall in recent months has nearly filled Baltimore's three reservoirs. Farmers in Southern Maryland, where the dry conditions lingered longest, are happy.

Almost everything an angler needs to know about the three bodies of water owned by Baltimore City in Baltimore County can be found in the annual guide published by the city's Department of Public Works. The 2008 Pocket Guide to Boating & Fishing is a 34-page guide filled with helpful maps and charts to tell you what kinds of fish are hanging out at Loch Raven, Liberty and Prettyboy reservoirs and cool facts about the fishing holes. The booklet won't catch fish, but it will get you pointed in the right direction and help avoid trouble with the watershed police.

The boat-fishing season on Loch Raven Reservoir begins Friday and runs through the end of November, the Baltimore Department of Public Works has announced. The fishing season at Liberty and Prettyboy reservoirs began March 1 and continues until Dec. 31. Boating in the reservoirs requires a permit, which is $60 a season. People who apply for a permit will receive a "2008 Pocket Guide to Boating and Fishing," which public works officials say gives details about more than 40 species of fish in the reservoirs.

Human-caused global warming has been shrinking the snowpack across the mountain ranges of the West for five decades, suggesting that the region's long battle for water will only worsen, according to a computer analysis released yesterday. As temperatures have increased, more winter precipitation has fallen as rain instead of snow, and the snow is melting sooner, reported the study published in the journal Science. The result is that rivers are flowing faster in the spring, raising the risk of flooding, and slower in the summer, raising the risk of drought.

Baltimore's decision to begin tapping the Susquehanna River on Tuesday to head off a potential shortage of drinking water next spring illustrates that planning ahead has become crucial in water management. Thanks to such planning by earlier generations, the Baltimore metropolitan area is served by three sizable reservoirs that are the envy of other Maryland cities, which wouldn't be allowed to build one today. And yet in periods of drizzly drought such as these, the reservoirs are not being replenished quickly enough with rainwater to ensure they will have adequate supplies when warmer weather brings higher demand.

Please note: A gunman killed eight shoppers then himself in a mall in Omaha, Neb., on Dec. 5, but no one killed anyone in Baltimore that day. In fact, we went five days without a shooting in Baltimore, from the evening of Dec. 2 until the afternoon of Dec. 7. There were no homicides from Dec. 4 through Dec. 10. Excuse me while I find this remarkable. It's remarkable because recent Decembers have been particularly bloody, as if there were a macabre rush to raise the violent crime numbers before the end of the year.