- June 04, 2026
- By John Tucker
- Photos by John T. Consoli
Primrose Stukes fell in love with the small colonial in Baltimore’s Westfield neighborhood a dozen years ago, its bay-windowed kitchen perfect for family gatherings and Ravens parties. But after she bought the house built in 1930, brown sludge started creeping up from the tub drain in one of the bathrooms.
Stukes routinely doused it with bleach and made do, until she attended a community meeting last November where a pair of University of Maryland researchers described their project studying water quality and its health impacts in Baltimore homes plagued by sewage backups—a problem they explained doesn’t affect all communities equally.
The 51-year-old Stukes, who lives in a neighborhood where backups are too common, learned the potential danger of what she’d been living with: When too much water overwhelms a sewer pipe network, often through cracks in an aging system that allow stormwater to enter, raw sewage is forced to reverse course and take the path of least resistance.
When it pours into homes through toilets and drains, it’s more than just a smelly mess; the backups often contain E. coli and other potentially harmful bacteria that can remain on surfaces for up to six months and cause fever, gastrointestinal symptoms and a wide range of infections. In rarer cases, antibiotic-resistant bacteria could lead to life-threatening infections for residents, especially children, the elderly and those with immune deficiencies.
After the meeting, Stukes told the researchers about the “grunky stuff that comes up through the tub,” and when they offered to collect a sample and pay her $75 for the hassle, she accepted. To the researchers—whose group, the Water Emergency Team (WET), comprises professors and students from the School of Public Health and the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation—the project goes beyond the academy.
The initiative is funded by a three-year, $1.3 million UMD Grand Challenges Grant on health and infrastructure and $2.2 million from the National Institutes of Health. Led by Marccus Hendricks, associate professor of urban studies and environmental planning who studies public infrastructure inequalities, and Rachel Rosenberg Goldstein, assistant professor in global, environmental and occupational health who studies water quality and risk communication, WET aims to educate communities and motivate policymakers to deal with public health risks from failing sewers and stormwater systems, partly by noting where they occur most—Stukes’ neighborhood, for instance, is primarily Black.
Like other class- and race-based divisions, whether in real estate or criminal justice, “certain individuals and groups across the urban landscape don’t have equal access to environmental resources, including protections from polluted water,” says Hendricks.
Madison Vlach ’27, an environmental science and policy major, takes a sample from a possible sewage overflow at a Baltimore house.
The city of Baltimore receives thousands of sewage complaints from residents each year.
Hendricks was raised in southwest Dallas, a community vulnerable to storm pipe bursts and flooding; Goldstein grew up in eastern North Carolina, where frequent floods coursed through hog farms, spreading waste. Both bring their personal experiences with dangerous water to this Maryland project.
Hendricks recalls a morning as a young teen when he awoke to a foot of water in his bedroom. His mother ripped out the carpet, scrubbed the cement foundation and spent what she could on new drywall. Hendricks doubted that North Dallas neighborhoods, home to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and President George W. Bush, ever dealt with such disasters.
“It gave me a burning desire to ask, ‘What was it about me, my family, my neighborhood that led to these outcomes?’” he says.
For his dissertation at Texas A&M University, Hendricks studied Houston’s two stormwater systems: a nexus of open ditches along roadways in the city’s heavily Black and Hispanic neighborhoods; the other a sophisticated apparatus of pipes to funnel away rainwater in wealthier, mostly white areas of the city.
After joining the UMD faculty, Hendricks gravitated toward Baltimore. Its picturesque Inner Harbor bustling with tourists contrasted with narrow waterways in poorer neighborhoods that challenged a 110-year-old sewage system spiderwebbed with cracks. The result was frequent residential backups; in a 12-month period ending last June, the city’s 311 service received 8,692 sewer-related complaints, likely a fraction of total occurrences. In 2019, supported by a Harvard University environmental health fellowship, Hendricks launched a pilot project that leaned on community guidance to address the issue.
Goldstein too knew what floods could do, remembering when Hurricane Floyd closed her school for two weeks. While pursuing her master’s in public health and Ph.D. at UMD, she studied wastewater treatment plants and the cycle of raw sewage, and was lead author of a study documenting the discovery of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in a wastewater treatment plant.
In 2021, Goldstein’s Biosafety Level 2 campus lab specializing in waterborne bacteria detection caught Hendricks’ attention, and he asked Goldstein, who also specializes in community engagement, to co-lead his project.
They began attending community meetings and arranging home visits with students, spending eight-hour days knocking on doors to inspect and swab bathrooms, kitchens and basements for signs—visible or otherwise—of sewage overflows. After sampling dozens of homes, they sent the specimens to Goldstein’s lab and waited for results.
It gave me a burning desire to ask, ‘What was it about me, my family, my neighborhood that led to these outcomes?’”
—Marccus Hendricks
Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Environmental Planning
Four WET team researchers trudge up a snowy sidewalk to Stukes’ porch one February afternoon. After swapping boots for disposable booties and saluting a cat named Theo, they follow Stukes to a bathtub where remnants of a recent propulsion rim the drain. Urban planning doctoral student Maeghan Goode tries to determine a cause—rain?
There’s no clear pattern, Stukes says: “It just comes up, and now it’s just kind of sitting there.”
As one student swabs the still-wet residue, Goode inspects the rest of the home, looking for clues like mold or leaks. Another researcher works through a survey with Stukes in her memorabilia-packed “Ravens Room”: How many people live in the house? (Only her and Theo.) Do you ever have symptoms like a cough? (No.) Have you communicated with the city? (She’s asked for help, to no avail.)
Inspections and surveys help root out infrastructure issues not just for individuals, but for disproportionately impacted communities as a whole, says Priscila Alves, assistant research professor of urban studies and planning and lead author of a recent paper on WET’s methodology.
“We look for patterns and clusters,” she says. “Inspections don’t necessarily show something is contributing to the sewage event, but they can turn on an alarm.”
A 40-house pilot study by the team, published last year, was just such a clarion call. It found 34 containing toxic bacteria likely linked to sewage, including one with ankle-deep water and E. coli concentrations 10 times the federal limit for swimming areas. Seven homes contained antibioticresistant bacteria; one had MRSA, estimated to cause more than 70,000 severe infections and 9,000 deaths annually. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects bacterial infections to be the leading cause of death by 2050.)
The residents were mostly homeowners and predominantly Black, female and in their 50s and 60s. Many reported nausea, shortness of breath and fatigue, and two-thirds battled anxiety. Some said they were scared to use their basements.
As the researchers say goodbye to Stukes, who’s part of a new phase of research, she half-jokingly asks, “Is the city going to come clean it up?”
While the U.S. Clean Water Act enforces liability for sewage spills into bodies of water, no laws protect residents from backups, according to Barbara Johnson, senior water protection manager for Blue Water Baltimore, a nonprofit. Baltimoreans can call 311, prompting the Department of Public Works to send an inspector to determine eligibility for free cleanup or reimbursement for cleaning costs up to $5,000.
Many are devastated by destroyed appliances and ravaged boxes of family mementos; it’s also common to feel shame.
“You’re not just dealing with your family’s poop, you’re talking about your neighbor’s poop in your basement,” says Johnson, whose organization has partnered with WET to double up on community outreach. Having the support of academics has been “amazing,” Johnson says. “They’ve brought this issue to light as a public health issue.”
Stukes points out potential spots for WET researchers to test for sewage contamination in her home.
Primrose Stukes (far left) welcomes members of UMD’s Water Emergency Team (WET) to her Baltimore house.
WET project manager Raisa Haq ’26 records details about sewer infrastructure woes in Stukes’ “Ravens Room.”
Sometimes the team tackles neglected infrastructure at scales far bigger than that of a single home. One morning in February, Goldstein takes a hesitant step onto a frozen hill above the Potomac River. Ice from a recent blizzard lingered, as did the stench from a Jan. 19 breach of a 72-inch wastewater pipe in Montgomery County, Md., which dumped nearly 250 million gallons of raw sewage into Washington’s main waterway. The disaster, likely the largest wastewater spill in U.S. history, sent cleanup crews scrambling to divert the spewing sludge into a nearby canal.
The geyser from the 60-year-old pipe may augur similar disasters across the country, due to a decrease in federal funding to replace sewage systems, critics maintain. When news of the spill broke, Goldstein dispatched students to ground zero to collect water samples, the first of weekly visits to monitor water quality.
As she and two researchers inch their way across an icy bridge surrounded by woods, a flock of geese descends on the fouled river. The odor grows stronger, “a sour decay, like some animal died,” observes Claire Barlow, a Ph.D. student in environmental health. “That’s not dirt,” Goldstein says at the frozen riverbank, pointing out toilet paper frozen in the sludge. At the river’s edge, WET’s project manager pokes a metal pole with a plastic jar into the water to collect a sample, then passes it to Goldstein. A sewage-saturated tampon sat nearby. “Anything that goes down a drain is now here.”
Two weeks after collecting its first sample, Goldstein’s team announced preliminary findings, sending shockwaves through the DMV and prompting President Donald Trump to deploy federal resources. The river contained extraordinarily high levels of fecal bacteria, including E. coli levels 10,000 times above EPA recreational water quality standards. Wastewater had flowed at least nine miles downstream, near Georgetown. The team also detected MRSA and the bacteria that causes Staph infections.
As it continues to monitor the river, the WET team is expanding its house testing with the Grand Challenges Grant funds, with a research footprint covering the city of Baltimore and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
In March, Stukes got a call from Goldstein with her test results. Surprisingly, the researchers found no pathogens in her tub. But on the basement walls under the bathroom, the team detected two fecal bacteria: Methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, often associated with hospital-acquired infections; and Enterococcus, able to cause potentially severe infections including those to the urinary tract.
“To think that my grandkids have played in the basement, leaning against the walls—it’s concerning,” she says the day after getting the news, criticizing the city. “I asked for help with leaking water years ago, and I’ve heard crickets.”
The WET team’s newest testing has yielded even more disturbing findings than the pilot. At most recent count, 64 of 77 homes contained fecal contamination, including 28 with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The researchers warn that the problem will intensify as a shifting climate causes more extreme weather.
Hendricks, who is writing a book about the history of Baltimore’s sewage system, isn’t shocked by the findings, citing a sense of resignation that settles on resource-starved communities. “Some have normalized infrastructure failures and exposures, or suppressed it,” he says.
Goldstein says she is fueled by residents’ kindness, despite their embarrassment, recalling one woman who inherited her mother’s home breaking down in tears in front of her, having seen the property value plummet because of the leaks.
“This isn’t just a research question,” she says. “People are living with this, with potentially lifelong impacts, but it’s not their fault.”