Baltimore County environmental staff and Bureau of Utilities crews sampled runoff after a resident reported gray, sudsy water and identified apparent washing‑machine connections to the storm‑drain system, county staff said.

The finding matters because water that enters storm drains is not treated and flows directly to local streams and the Chesapeake Bay, county staff said. The county will follow up with property owners to get improper connections corrected and asked residents to report suspected pollution on the Baltimore County website.

"We're here with Baltimore County's Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability and their natural resource specialist, Megan Brosh, who is monitoring for pollutants flowing from our storm drains into the stream," a county presenter said at the start of the field investigation.

"I'm here with my coworker, Sarah Witcher, and we're here because a resident called in a complaint about gray sudsy water. So we're gonna sample the water that runs from the storm drain into the stream, and we're gonna test it for contaminants," said Megan Brosh, natural resource specialist with the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability. Brosh said the field team collected a water sample, took a flow measurement and performed a visual inspection; contaminant testing is done back at a county van using a colorimeter.

Brosh described the county's investigative routine: when a citizen complaint yields a high reading, staff "drive the area looking for the source of pollution," open manholes and work upstream through the storm system. She said the county asked the Bureau of Utilities to run video inside the pipes to narrow the source.

"The Bureau of Utility uses a CCTV unit to take an assessment of the storm drain pipes in Baltimore County. This is one of our CCTV units. The county currently has 6 units, and they're responsible for assessing over 2,000 miles of sanitary sewer pipe and over a thousand miles of storm drain pipe," said Rodney Turner, superintendent with the Bureau of Utilities, describing the camera equipment and its capabilities. Turner said the county's RBAC Rapid View camera can inspect pipes from 6 inches to 60 inches in diameter and can TV more than 2,000 feet in a single run.

Reviewing the CCTV video, Brosh said inspectors "can look at this video and see that there are some tap ins to the storm drain. Looks like somebody's connected their washing machine accidentally to the storm drain instead of the sanitary sewer. So what I'll do is follow‑up with the business or the property owner, let them know the issue and work on getting it corrected." Brosh added that any water entering the storm drain goes straight to the stream and then to the bay: "we only want rain down the drain."

Brosh told viewers that residents can report suspected pollution through the Baltimore County website. The field segment concluded with a signoff from the county outreach program Clean Green Baltimore County asking residents to follow the program on Facebook for tips on protecting waterways.

No formal enforcement action or citation was announced in the video; Brosh described follow‑up contact with property owners and further investigation as the next steps.