Water Quality Monitoring

Sites sampled by Baltimore City and Baltimore County in 2009.

Keeping track of water quality is essential to measuring our progress towards a swimmable and fishable Habor. Tracking requires ongoing monitoring at multiple sites both in the Harbor and in the streams (Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls) that feed into it.

Unfortunately, there is nowhere the average citizen can go to freely access timely water quality information at the local scale.  Waterfront Partnership is working to change this.  We are collaborting with Blue Water Baltimore and EcoCheck, a partnership between NOAA and the University of Maryland, to create the first ever comprehensive annual State of the Harbor report card program.

The report card will be available here along with links to explore the data in more detail on our partner websites.

EcoCheck has previously assisted the Waterfront Partnership by gathering existing data on the water quality of Baltimore's streams and Harbor. This data was used to to prepare a baseline assessment of existing conditions.

The Center for Watershed Protection and Blue Water Baltimore work
together to sample Baltimore storm drains for bacteria.

Eyes on the Bay

Through a partnership between the National Aquarium and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, realtime water quality data is available from a permanent monitoring station located at Masonville Cove in Baltimore Harbor.  

It may not be much to look at, but the Masonville Cove monitoring site is currently the most reliable source of water quality data in Baltimore Harbor and it has informed both the Healthy Harbor Plan and the Baseline Conditions Report.

To get up to date water quality data visit the Patapsco River - Masonville Cove site (link leaves site).

Water quality indicators monitored include:

• Dissolved Oxygen
• Salinity
• Water Temperature
• pH
• Turbidity
• Chlorophyll
• Phycoerythrin