Dam Jam Brings People Closer to Water Supply

You use tap water countless times a day, but do you ever really think about where it comes from?

On Sunday, Baltimore city and county will host at , a music and arts festival in the Loch Raven Reservoir watershed that will also give residents a chance to talk about that very thing.

Visitors can take a guided nature walk in the woods around the reservoir and meet engineers who worked on the Loch Raven Dam's 2005 expansion. The festival is also sponsored by the Towson Arts Collective and will include artists and performers from around the Baltimore area.

Saying that the water comes from the reservoir, though, is a bit inaccurate. Even if you live in Towson, Timonium or Parkville, a short distance from the city-owned reservoir, the water in your glass makes a much longer trip.

From the 23-billion gallon Loch Raven Reservoir, it flows seven miles to treatment plants at Lake Montebello, then to underground tanks or storage areas like the Towson Reservoir. From there, it's pumped to tanks and water towers and, finally, to your faucet.

As for what spills over the dam, that heads to the Gunpowder River and, eventually, the Chesapeake Bay.

Kurt Kocher, a spokesman for Baltimore City Department of Public Works, said the biggest issues facing the water system today are education and infrastructure.

As the city and county work to upgrade pipes, recent storms provided an argument for why the work is so sorely needed.

"If we didn't invest the money in this dam, I hate to think of what would have happened when Irene and Lee, back to back, came through," Kocher said, noting that when the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee hit the Baltimore area, water crested five feet over the dam. Kocher said the dam can withstand 20 feet of overflow.

Meanwhile, Kocher said, some residents treat storm drains as trash cans, assuming that their waste will be treated, when in fact the trash goes right into area waterways like the Jones Falls or the Patapsco River. At Dam Jam, visitors will be able to see a model storm drain at work.

"You see the trash in there and where things go," he said.

Dam Jam runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. In case of inclement weather, the festival will be canceled. For more information, call 410 396-3500.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited a 2005 consent decree. Patch regrets the error.