Fecal coliform contamination at the Boat Lake could be due to the feces of ducks, birds, geese, dogs or a combination. (Photo by Audrey Zaremba)
Don’t drink the water. In fact, don’t touch the water, and under no circumstances should anyone eat a fish that comes from the Boat Lake in Patterson Park.
The Baltimore City Health Department posted signs this month warning people away from any recreational activities in the water of the boat lake.
The Baltimore Health Department has found alarming levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the water of the lake. It is not known whether the bacteria come from duck, goose or dog feces—it is probably a combination of the three.
“There are still critters in there. The fish are swimming, the ducks are swimming,” said Tim Almaguer, Executive Director of the Friends of Patterson Park. “But it’s not safe for humans.”
People should not wade, or swim, or clean their hands in the water. People may still fish, and Family Fishing Thursdays will continue, but on a strictly catch-and-release basis. Do not under any circumstances eat anything that comes from the boat lake.
The contamination at the boat lake has to do with its construction and development. The boat lake was dug as a slurry pool in the 1860s, when livestock roamed the park—that is why it is located at the bottom of the long slope from Baltimore Street to Eastern Avenue.
“Everything on the hillside ends up in that lake,” said Almaguer.
There is a drain at the south end of the lake, and everything that makes its way through the trash filter ends up at the outfall at Harris Creek between the Anchorage and Lighthouse Point in Canton.
Through erosion, storm runoff and drainage, sediment streams to the boat lake. There is a tank at the north end of the boat lake to catch the sediment. But in the last eight years, the sediment catchment tank has begun to fill. It will fill up sometime within the next five years, and there are no plans to dredge the tank.
“We don’t have the funding, resources or skills for proper management,” said Almaguer. And with Baltimore City Council poised to cut the budget of the Department of Recreation and Parks by as much as a third, funding is unlikely to appear.
—by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com
it’s truly sad how the politition’s can take money frow our city and contribute to verious endevihours and not make major contribution’s to inner city tragedeys such as this !!, and program’s to keep our children from Drug’s, Prostitution’s,Prosecution’s,and Idle time event’s which leads to trouble and bad choices in which they see no way out excect to go with what they percieve to an all or nothing chioce!!,in or out !! feeling that no one cares c’mon Maryland we can do better than what we offer our children’s future!!!…