The Hollewas have lived happily in their home in a tidy neighborhood in rural Adamstown, Maryland for over a decade. But during the last eight months these empty-nesters have been troubled by the water coming out of their faucets: it’s often brownish-yellow, with a strange sediment.
“I don't feel clean. [Since this started] I’m sick all the time. I feel helpless,” says Paula Hollewa, who is now following her doctor’s recommendation not to drink or wash in the water. It is stressful, she says, not to trust the water in her own home, which uses municipal water. Her husband, Frank, shakes his head: “We’ve tried everything. It’s the biggest mystery.”
Hollewa reached out to UMD’s Maryland Safe Drinking WATER Study after seeing a post about the project on Facebook. The research team included her home in one of their final water sampling trips in 2025.
Dr. Rianna Murray, associate research professor at UMD’s School of Public Health (SPH) and co-director of the WATER Study project, says while Hollewa’s drinking water issues are not the norm in Maryland, cases like theirs confirm the importance of the research project.
“From the crisis in Flint, Michigan, a decade ago to the boil-water advisories in Baltimore more recently, water quality issues pop up all the time. We want to help Marylanders know what exactly is in the water they drink and the remediation steps recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),” said Murray.
Associate Research Professor Dr. Leena Malayil and Murray together devised the WATER Study, funded by a UMD Grand Challenges grant, to investigate water quality of public drinking water systems and private wells across Maryland, with a focus on underserved communities.
“Drinking water sources and municipal facilities are well-monitored, but there is little information at the household level. Our study is one of the first to test for such a wide array of contaminants in home drinking water across the entire state,” Malayil said.
What’s in the water
In the project’s first phase, over 800 participants used at-home test kits to check for contaminants such as lead, bacteria and nitrates. Wearing polyethylene overalls and gloves, the research team then traveled to 154 homes in Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore city, including the Hollewas’, collecting water samples where the water line enters the home, and at the point of use, such as a kitchen sink.
Researchers are looking for contaminants of “emerging concern” that include per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals” – human-made compounds that do not break down over time – as well as pharmaceutical and personal or home care products, heavy metals and microbial contaminants.
“The preliminary data suggest drinking water in Maryland is generally safe. The at-home test kits showed small percentages of households with various harmful contaminants,” said Murray.
“We are still analyzing samples but we expect to see the presence of ‘forever chemicals’, consistent with other research and possibly heavy metals and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, which are also harmful to health.”
PFAS have been found in at least 45% of American drinking water sources and have been shown to increase risk of cancer by a third.
The WATER Study project is a collaboration that includes PFAS expert Dr. Paul Turner and microbiologist Dr. Amy R. Sapkota in SPH and Dr. Allen P. Davis, the Charles A. Irish Sr. Chair in Civil Engineering at UMD. Davis’ lab tested water samples for inorganic contaminants including phosphorus, nitrate, zinc and arsenic.
“Our data show that in general things look good. But we have a few samples where concentrations exceed federal limits in both municipal supplies and from wells from around the state. We're in the process of finalizing data and trying to understand where this contamination may come from. It may be from the supply or the plumbing in the house,” said Davis.
Water, wellness and community
On the outskirts of Adamstown, Hope Green’s single-story home relies on well water. A retired farmer who studied environmental science, she is one of the few people who tests her well water regularly. As the WATER Study team takes samples at her kitchen faucet, she says she is concerned about the water in her well since major construction of a data center began on a former superfund site about a mile from her house. The Hollewas and other Adamstown neighbors share Green’s concerns about the construction and their water problems.
“After two years of good testing, my well just failed and it failed the same year they started digging back there,” said Green who, frustrated with the lack of answers, has since installed a reverse osmosis water filter.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires municipal water to be tested regularly to ensure the immediate safety of public drinking water, but it has no testing requirements for private wells. In response to residents’ concerns, the Frederick County Health Department tested 10 wells in Adamstown and said preliminary results announced Feb. 10 show “naturally occurring metals and levels of contamination typically seen near farms, households, railroad tracks and industrial sites,” but no evidence that currently links well contamination to data center development.
Georgia Parolski, an environmental health specialist at SPH and program manager of the WATER Study, has traveled Maryland’s length and breadth on sampling trips. She says people with wells rarely test their water for contaminants unless there are clear signs of a problem. Parolski hopes that even if the law doesn’t require it, the project will encourage more people with wells to test them regularly.
Green hopes her results will prompt her neighbors to test their water: “People might be a little lax on testing their wells, but if they are informed there's a problem, they'll get it done.”
Study participants like Green and the Hollewas will receive individualized results detailing any contaminants detected in their homes’ water and their respective EPA safety levels.
We hope our study will help Maryland residents know what’s in their water as well as support policy-makers to maintain drinking water quality across the state.
This spring, the WATER Study team, partnering with the University of Maryland Extension, will lead public workshops to educate Marylanders on home drinking water safety and share some of their findings.
People should know what’s in their water and how to protect themselves, Malayil said, particularly as major construction projects such as data centers increasingly pop up across the state.
“Recent concerns about water quality and the major development in Adamstown for example, serve as a clear example of why this research is essential,” said Malayil. “We hope our study will help Maryland residents know what’s in their water as well as support policy-makers to maintain drinking water quality across the state.”
