by Yvonne Wenger, originally posted on May 27, 2016

bout 3,000 city water customers in the Dundalk area will receive a notice about a violation due to an excessive amount of a chemical byproduct in their drinking water that officials said Friday requires notification but no other actions.

The Baltimore Department of Public Works announced that quarterly sampling from February 2015 to January showed an average value for haloacetic acids that exceeded the maximum contaminant level by 3 parts per billion. Haloacetic acids form when disinfectants react with organic matter in water, according to the agency. Levels at the sampling location on Wise Avenue have since returned to normal.

“Although this incident was not an emergency, DPW customers have the right to know what happened and what we are doing to correct the situation,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Customers do not need to boil water or take other corrective actions.”

About half of the 410,000 residential and commercial customers that Baltimore’s water system directly serves are in Baltimore County.

DPW routinely monitors dozens of sampling stations for drinking water contaminants, the agency says. The maximum level for haloacetic acids is 60 parts per billion. The average value for the Wise Avenue location was 63 parts per billion, during the impacted time frame.

Annual averages for all other sampling locations were below the maximum level, according to officials. The agency says its monthly sampling for haloacetic acids is done three times as often as required.