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BALTIMORE COUNTY - During routine testing, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) identified low levels of Cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite, in the Druid Lake Reservoir.

The microorganism, often found in lakes and rivers, can potentially cause gastrointestinal issues, especially in the immunocompromised, elderly, or children.

This discovery affects only a fraction of the Baltimore region's water system, covering Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Howard County. An Interactive Map has been provided for residents to ascertain if they reside within the impacted regions.

DPW has emphasized that the water remains safe for general consumption and that this finding does not parallel previous water-related challenges faced by the region.

Cryptosporidium, while not posing an immediate threat to public health, is known for its resistance to chlorine treatments. This characteristic means secondary treatments, common in hospitals, may not significantly reduce its levels.

The Baltimore City Health Department advises that due to the low risk, most residents only need to take further precautions if they have immunocompromising conditions. Those with suppressed immune systems, including patients with HIV/AIDS, inherited immune diseases, cancer, and transplant recipients, should consider drinking bottled water, boiling tap water for a minute before consumption, or using specialized filters that adhere to the ANSI/NSF 53 or 58 standards.

This detection results from the recently modified Administrative Order on Consent between Baltimore City and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It mandates the testing for Cryptosporidium and Giardia at the city's exposed finished reservoirs.

The latest sampling from Druid Lake Reservoir was collected on September 19, 2023, indicating 0.09 Cryptosporidium Oocyst/Liter.

It's crucial to note that the source water, coming from Liberty, Loch Raven, and Prettyboy reservoirs and the Susquehanna River during drought conditions, has not been affected by this parasite. The DPW continues to treat this source water for Cryptosporidium before it reaches the finished water reservoirs.

In response to the discovery, DPW announced that it will increase the frequency of testing for Cryptosporidium at the city's finished water reservoirs and keep the public informed on the results.

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For those seeking more in-depth information, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided resources detailing general information about the parasite and specific guidelines for immunocompromised individuals.

More News from Perry Hall

Pappas Seafood Co. plans to pack and ship millions of crabcakes from its new Perry Hall distribution hub when the center opens next week.

But you won’t have to make a mail order to take home some of the goods. The new Pappas Center will also have a carryout seafood shop for locals who want to buy crabcakes, soups and more.

The carryout will open at the same time as the distribution hub on Sept. 20, said Karen Zimmerer, a managing partner and chief financial officer for Pappas. The 7,500-square-foot shipping center, which will also house the local seafood chain’s corporate offices, has been in the works for over two years and got an endorsement from the Baltimore County Council last year when council members voted to approve a zoning change allowing the facility to open at 8801 Belair Road.

A carryout wasn’t initially part of the plan for the building, Zimmerer said, but came to be based on customer feedback.

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“It’s such a prime spot, such a prime commercial location on Belair, so we decided we’d try it,” she said.

In addition to crabcakes, the new carryout will sell Pappas favorites like Maryland crab soup and “humpty lumptys,” the seafood chain’s name for deviled eggs topped with crab meat and Old Bay. The shop will not sell steamed crabs, Zimmerer said.

Similar to a Pappas Seafood carryout in Parkville, customers will be able to place orders for pickup online. There will also be kiosks in the store to order on-site. The carryout will be open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The store will be a pop-up concept to start: Zimmerer said the carryout will have a three-month trial period to gauge local interest. “If it’s really, really busy and we’re overtaking this spot, we may look for other real estate,” she said.

A grand opening and ribbon-cutting for the distribution hub and pop-up is scheduled for Oct. 7. The Pappas Center will help the 51-year-old seafood company streamline its shipping operations, which until now have been spread between four different buildings and three shipping containers.

The new space will have five walk-in coolers as well as an office area with foosball tables and room to grow the company’s staff of 24 employees.

Pappas has restaurants in Cockeysville, Parkville, Glen Burnie and Bel Air, and ships to customers across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Zimmerer said last year that the company ships 3.5 million crabcakes annually. Pappas, established in 1971, has at least one famous fan: Oprah Winfrey, who included their crabcakes on her list of “favorite things” in 2015.

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PERRY HALL - Baltimore County Council Member Julian E. Jones has proposed legislation to pave the way for the historic Perry Hall Mansion's auction and restoration.

Constructed in the 1770s, the Perry Hall Mansion was once the heart of a vast plantation in Baltimore County. Established by Harry Dorsey Gough, the mansion's name pays homage to his family's castle near Birmingham, England.

Despite its illustrious past and recognition as a "sister" house to the nearby Hampton Mansion, the centuries have not been kind to the historic Perry Hall residence. Never utilized by any County department, the mansion is in dire need of comprehensive maintenance and restoration.

Baltimore County purchased the mansion in 2001, intending to transform it into a museum and community hub. Initial restoration efforts in 2004 garnered an award from the Preservation Alliance of Baltimore County, recognizing it as an "outstanding public project." However, the momentum didn't sustain, and the hope now is that a new owner, backed by the county's support, will restore the Perry Hall Mansion to its former glory.

Council Member Jones has proposed two resolutions that could change the mansion's fate. Resolution No. 21-23 gives the county the nod to sell the mansion via auction, and Resolution No. 22-23 offers the future owner substantial grants to help with renovation costs.

The property is under a historic preservation easement with the Maryland Historical Trust, mandating the protection and preservation of the landmark property. Additionally, future owners must provide limited public access and obtain prior approval for any changes or alterations.

The Baltimore County Government hopes that placing the mansion into the hands of a party committed to its rehabilitation will not only preserve its history but also reintroduce it to the tax rolls.

The proposed legislation would provide a financial cushion to the mansion's future owner, offering a $250,000 grant to mitigate renovation costs. These funds are especially important given the high price of adhering to preservation requirements set by the Maryland Historical Trust.

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The resolutions are slated for discussion at the County Council's Work Session on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, at 4 p.m. A final reading and vote will occur during the Legislative Session on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, at 6 p.m.

More News from Perry Hall

PERRY HALL, Md. (WBFF) — Outraged over how Baltimore County Schools is handling the recent spike in violence across the district, a Baltimore County mother has pulled her son from school to keep him safe.

Tiffany Moyd and her teenage son moved from Baltimore City to Baltimore County a few years ago.

“I thought it would be a better education for my kids,” Moyd told Project Baltimore.

When asked if it has been a better education, Moyd replied, “No. Not at all.”

Moyd asked Project Baltimore not to identify her son. He’s currently in eleventh grade at Perry Hall High School, where she says he’s not safe. And she wants him out.

“There's absolutely no control over the kids. It's haywire at Perry Hall,” said Moyd.

Perry Hall High School has recently made headlines for what seems like an unrelenting number of serious problems with violence, guns, lockdowns, and fights. Moyd says her son has gotten caught up in it.

Last December, her child was involved in a fight. The video is disturbing, but it shows her son on the ground while another person repeatedly beats him on the head.

“Heartbreaking, mad, upset, pissed because you're supposed to be the one to protect your child,” Moyd said, describing the first time she saw the video. “It's hard. It's very hard. Very hard.”

This fight did not happen on school grounds. But the person punching Moyd’s son, she says, is a Perry Hall student. After seeing this video, Moyd says she told school administrators about her concerns for her son’s safety.

“How can a child learn, and you got to worry about your safety or whether you're going to get jumped or banked or whatever the case may be? You can't learn that way. You can't,” explained Moyd.

But Moyd says administrators didn’t do enough to control the situation, and the problem got worse, as that fight led to more fights inside the school. By June, the situation got so bad, Moyd filed charges against two students at Perry Hall who allegedly attacked her son.

Moyd hoped filing those charges would send a strong message to the district to take the violence more seriously and protect her child. But on the first day of school this year, her son says he was confronted by one of his alleged attackers in class. That day, Moyd pulled him out of Perry Hall. He’s not been back since.

On September 1, this frustrated mom filed to transfer her son to a different high school. She had court documents, bullying and harassment complaints. Moyd even filed a written statement explaining why her child was not safe and should be transferred.

According to Baltimore County Public Schools policy, if a parent wants to transfer a student to a non-zoned school, a special permission transfer form is required. BCPS policy clearly says, “For applications filed for a transfer during the current school year, the principal or director will make every effort to issue a decision within ten (10) business days.” Moyd filed the transfer paperwork two months ago. In that time, all her son was offered was virtual learning. Moyd says that’s not good enough. She wants him to learn in-person, in a safe environment.

“My entire life is on hold. I have to get my son in school. He's a black, young man. He needs an education,” Moyd told Project Baltimore.

Project Baltimore reached out to Baltimore County Schools requesting an interview to discuss the status of Moyd’s transfer request. Two days after that email, Moyd says the principal of Perry Hall called her, and offered Kenwood and Sparrows Point as transfer options.

Moyd is not happy with either choice. She gave the district a list of four schools that would work for her family. But that list did not include either of those schools. Sparrows Point is about 15 miles from her house, and she doesn’t feel Kenwood would be safe.

“I moved here thinking that the schools was better. And I basically got bamboozled. I got bamboozled,” said Moyd.

Now, this mom wants to move again.

“To be honest with you, I'm so over it here in Baltimore, I want to move out the state,” Moyd told Project Baltimore. “That's how fed up I am with Baltimore County, the school system. I'm fed up. I'm fed up. I'm completely fed up.”

Following a green light from the Baltimore County Council, Pappas Seafood Co. will soon open a 7,500-square-foot crabcake distribution hub in Perry Hall.

The council voted Monday night to approve a zoning change allowing the facility to open at 8801 Belair Road. Pappas staffers could move into the space within a few months, said managing partner and CFO Karen Zimmerer.

Every year, Pappas ships some 3.5 million orders of its crabcakes, a noted favorite of Oprah Winfrey, Zimmerer said. The company, which got started in the 1970s as a Parkville restaurant, is also a local favorite. For Pappas, the first year of the pandemic brought a boom in shipping orders.

“2020 was insane,” Zimmerer said. “Absolutely blew us away. And then just as quick — in 2021 — what we gained, we lost.”

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In 2021, as diners returned to restaurants, orders dropped off, she said. Now, the volume is just a bit higher than pre-pandemic levels. But the idea of opening a large distribution space came before the coronavirus rocked the restaurant world, she said. It was just a matter of finding the right space.

The new space will include offices and meeting space, along with plenty of refrigeration and freezer units for crab meat, soups and ice packs. There will also be a gourmet kitchen, which will create crabcakes to ship and for the Pappas restaurants, located in Cockeysville, Glen Burnie, Parkville and at the National Harbor, Zimmerer said. Not to mention a separate packing area for the roughly 2,000 orders that come in each month (a number that balloons during the winter holidays).

It’s a far cry from how the shipping operation began 14 years ago, Zimmerer said.

“We were working out of the back of a Dodge Durango to pack up boxes, so we’ve come a long way,” she said.

Back then, Zimmerer would take orders by phone, often from diners who’d tried the crabcakes in the restaurant, and ship them herself — one package at a time.

“Within the first six months that got to be crazy, so we started a little GoDaddy website,” she said.

From the “crab room” in the carryout seafood shop (across the street from the Pappas Parkville restaurant), the operation expanded into the attached building. Then, they added a trailer in the alley, and planted a few shipping containers along Taylor Avenue, Zimmerer said.

“We were very resourceful, but we’re out of room now,” she said.

Pappas will probably retain its seafood market space in Parkville, said managing partner Steve Pappas, “just without those ugly containers that are all over that corner, because we’ll have the new warehouse where we can put our boxes and equipment.”

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“So, it will pretty Parkville as well,” Pappas said during a county council meeting last week.

Now, rising crab prices have forced a bit more creativity, Zimmerer said. Recently, Pappas debuted a new budget crabcake, dubbed the Baltimore Backfin, inspired by 1970s-style crabcakes — the kind you might get at a carnival, she said. Four-once cakes are currently priced at $10.95, and the 8-ounce variety is $18.95, she said.

The traditional Pappas Famous 8-ounce crabcakes have stuck just below $30, in spite of rising costs.

“We’re just hanging in there,” Zimmerer said. “But we hate to go that high for our customers.”

The prices don’t seem to have quelled the taste for crabcakes — at least not within the county council.

Last week, during a discussion about the zoning measure proposed by Councilman David Marks, Council Chairman Julian Jones volunteered a “friendly amendment”:

“One that would require the county council to sample these crabcakes before they’re distributed throughout the country, because after all, it’s a reflection of us here in Baltimore County,” he said with a smile.