What's in Anne Arundel County, MD tap water?
Anne Arundel County sits about 31 miles from our Arlington base and is served primarily by Glen Burnie-Broadneck, which provides water to roughly 291,000 people. It draws from the Potomac River watershed. Most of the DC metro area drinks treated Potomac River water. Because that surface water is heavily disinfected to stay safe across a long distribution system, the contaminants that most often exceed EWG's stricter health guidelines here are chlorination byproducts, alongside unregulated contaminants like PFAS and hexavalent chromium.
Find a local installerGlen Burnie-Broadneck water quality report, explained
What testing of Glen Burnie-Broadneck water shows for Anne Arundel County, compared with EWG's health guidelines. Being above a guideline is not a legal violation.
Primary water system (EPA)
Glen Burnie-Broadneck
Serves about 291,000 people
Contaminants EWG most often flags above its health guidelines for the Potomac River watershed:
Larger areas have more than one water system. Enter your exact zip code below for your utility's own EPA record and EWG report.
Measured by the EPA · Anne Arundel County, MD
Anne Arundel County, MD runs its own water system — and it has not been tested for PFAS.
Anne Arundel County is on groundwater — wells rather than a river intake — serving roughly 290,606 people through 83,272 connections. That is unusual for this area, where most supplies come off the Potomac, and it changes which contaminants are worth worrying about.
Groundwater does not carry the chlorination byproducts that dominate river supplies, because it needs far less disinfection. What it carries instead comes out of the rock: arsenic, radium, manganese, and nitrate where there is farming above the aquifer. Boiling concentrates all of them rather than removing them.
It was tested for 29 PFAS compounds in the EPA's latest round and none came back above reporting limits — genuinely good news, and a single window in time. No lead or copper results appear in EPA's published record for this system. It carries 13 violations on file, none health-based — monitoring and reporting lapses rather than contamination.
Glen Burnie-Broadneck, on the EPA's record
- Source
- groundwater
- Connections served
- 83,272
- People served
- 290,606
- Violations on file
- 13, none health-based
How this water is treated before it reaches you
Treatment makes water safe to distribute. It is not designed to remove PFAS, and chlorine-based disinfection creates byproducts of its own.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System record for Glen Burnie-Broadneck (PWSID MD0020017). Systems outside the UCMR5 sample are not required to test for PFAS.
2 contaminants above EWG's health guidelines
Everything EWG found above its guideline in Anne Arundel County's water, from testing in 2013-2023. A level can be under the legal limit and still be listed here: EWG's guidelines are set to protect health, not to be easy to meet.
| Contaminant | In this water | EWG guideline | Times over |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radium, combined (-226 and -228) | 1.80 pCi/L | 0.05 pCi/L | 36× |
| Haloacetic acids (HAA9) | 0.992 ppb | 0.06 ppb | 17× |
Source: EWG Tap Water Database, Glen Burnie-Broadneck (MD0020017).
The fix for Anne Arundel County water
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Reverse osmosis under your sink, for the contaminants EWG most often flags in the Potomac River watershed.
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Common in U.S. tap water
Anne Arundel County water quality FAQ
Is Anne Arundel County, MD tap water safe to drink?
Public water in Anne Arundel County meets federal EPA legal limits. But "legal" is not the same as "clean": across the Potomac River watershed, independent testing routinely finds contaminants like total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) and haloacetic acids (HAA5) above EWG's stricter health guidelines. Enter your zip code above to see your exact utility's record.
What contaminants are common in Anne Arundel County water?
For the Potomac River watershed, the contaminants that most often exceed health guidelines are total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), haloacetic acids (HAA5), hexavalent chromium (chromium-6), PFAS (forever chemicals) and lead (from older service lines). Your specific levels depend on your utility, which you can look up by zip code above.
Does Sanavia install reverse osmosis systems in Anne Arundel County?
Yes. Anne Arundel County is roughly 31 miles from our Arlington base and inside our service area. A Sanavia Hydra reverse osmosis system installs under your sink and reduces every contaminant class above, and we'll mail you a free water test kit.
Where does Anne Arundel County tap water come from?
Anne Arundel County's primary public water system is Glen Burnie-Broadneck, which serves roughly 291,000 people. It sits in the Potomac River watershed, so its water shares that region's contaminant profile. Larger areas may have more than one utility, so enter your exact zip code above for your own system's EPA record.
Is well water in Anne Arundel County tested for these contaminants?
No. Private wells are not covered by municipal testing, so the responsibility falls on the homeowner. If your Anne Arundel County home is on a well, nitrate and naturally occurring contaminants are worth testing for specifically, and a reverse osmosis system reduces them at the tap. We'll mail you a free water test kit either way.
Contaminants common in the Potomac River watershed
Each of these is a plain-English guide to a contaminant class common in Anne Arundel County and the surrounding Potomac River watershed — what it is, the health context, and what actually removes it.
Reverse osmosis in Anne Arundel County, MD
Glen Burnie-Broadneck treats this water to the federal standard, yet the contaminants listed above still exceed EWG’s stricter health guidelines — Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), Haloacetic acids (HAA5), Hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) and 2 more. Most of them either pass straight through treatment or form after the plant, in the pipes between it and the tap, which is why the fix has to be at the tap as well.
Lead is the one nothing upstream can fix. It does not arrive from the treatment plant; it comes off the service line and the household plumbing in between, which is why two houses on the same street test differently. A reverse osmosis membrane sits at the end of that run, after every pipe the water has already passed through.
Fit it yourself
$999, under the sink, with the included instructions.
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$1,250 installed in Anne Arundel County.
Full testing record for Anne Arundel County · Find a local installer
Further reading for Anne Arundel County
Detailed city water reports
For the largest DC-metro utilities we publish the full measured contaminant table.
Nearby areas we serve
What's in your Anne Arundel County tap?
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