Quench: The Cleaner, Greener, More Affordable Water Cooler for Baltimore

Baltimore Water Quality: Yesterday

Nearly 50 years before the United States established independence in 1776, the city of Baltimore, founded in 1729, was a thriving community gathered along the Patapsco River. Early settlers and Native people drank directly from wells and streams, ponds, and springs.

In the early 1800s, the Baltimore Water Company, which would later be sold to the city in 1854, was formed and set to work on the city’s water infrastructure. Under their guidance, the city welcomed its first reservoir at the corner of Center and Calvert Streets to receive water from Jones Falls, as well as its first distribution system.

As Baltimore’s population exploded throughout the 19^th century, so did its need for accessible water. The Jones Falls supply was expanded and improved by the construction of Lake Roland Dam and Reservoir and the development of a system of mains and conduits. The Water Department also completed Lake Chapman, now Druid Lake, in 1865, as well as Druid Hill Reservoir, Loch Raven Reservoir and a dam across Gunpowder Falls due to increasing demand and recurring droughts throughout the 1870s and 1880s.

Baltimore Water Quality: Today

Public heath concerns pushed Baltimore to begin chlorinating its water in the 1910s and 20s and to construct a water filtration plant at Lake Montebello, which celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 2015. The plant produced the city’s first ever crystal clear water, but its original indoor filters, which remain in use today, are beginning to show their age. The Baltimore Water Department plans to open a new plant in Fullerton in 2020.

Open reservoirs and water sources, like those in much of our country’s earliest cities, are susceptible to contamination, causing many residents to complain of an earthy taste or musty odor. Also like many older cities, most of Baltimore’s water mains and water infrastructure are cost iron pipes, the drinking water industry standard until the mid-1960s. Older cast iron pipes are prone to corrosion and biofilm contamination from chemical reactions. These chemical reactions create clusters of corrosion and bacteria along the inside of the pipe, diminishing the space that the drinking water travels through. Sometimes these clusters break off and travel with your water to your faucet, resulting in water cloudiness, red water, and off-taste and odor.

Quench Water Coolers – A Better Drinking Water System for Baltimore

No need to worry about what your office’s drinking water might have picked up on its journey to your glass. Quench offers a full complement of filtration and purification technologies to remove sediment, reduce chemical contaminants, including lead, and get rid of off-tastes and odors. That’s how we can guarantee that a Quench office water cooler produces crisp, clean, great-tasting water – and at a fraction of the price of bottled water delivery services.