MWRA Annual Water Quality Report is in the Mail

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has begun mailing its Annual Water Quality Report to every household in its service area.

“This report brings you the results of our annual water quality testing. While 2020 was a year filled with uncertainty, one thing remained constant: the quality of your drinking water was excellent,” said Fred Laskey, MWRA’s Executive Director. “MWRA takes hundreds of thousands of tests each year and for 2020, we again met every federal and state drinking water standard.” Test results for PFAS, the ‘forever chemicals’ that have recently been in the news, were also well below the state’s standards.

MWRA also wants its customers to know that their water was again named ‘Best of the Best’ at a national taste test conducted by the American Water Works Association. “In just a few years, our water treatment has been upgraded from chlorine with its taste and odor issues, to ozone and ultraviolet light, which resulted in better tasting, safer water,” said Laskey.

The report is distributed to over 850,000 homes in the MWRA service area as required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Community-specific inserts also provide information about municipal water systems in the MWRA service area.

The reports, including a Spanish language version, are also available on-line and a larger-print version is available upon request.

For more information, please visit MWRA’s website at www.mwra.com or call 617-242-5323.

Massachusetts Water Resources Authority wins
“Best of the Best” Water Taste Test

Water and wastewater services provider secures top honor at the American Water Works Association’s ACE21 All Virtual

(DENVER) – The American Water Works Association announced today during ACE21 All Virtual that the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) of Boston has won the 16th “Best of the Best” Water Taste Test. The event was composed of regional AWWA section winners of water taste competitions.

Second place in the taste test went to the City of Fort Collins, Colo., and third place went to the City of Bozeman, Mont.

MWRA is a public authority established by an act of the Massachusetts legislature in 1984 to provide wholesale water and sewer services to 3.1 million people in 61 metropolitan Boston communities. The Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs, with 412 and 65 billion-gallon capacities respectively, are the primary source reservoirs for MWRA drinking water customers.  

Other Best of the Best section winners in the competition included: Central Arkansas Water, Little Rock, Ark.; City of Adairsville, Ga.; City of Janesville Water Utility, Wis.; City of Lawrence, Kan.; Spotsylvania County Utilities/Public Works, Fredericksburg, Va.; Sun Valley Water & Sewer District, Idaho; Talquin Electric, Water & Wastewater, Inc., Quincy, Fla.; Town of the Blue Mountains, Thornbury, Ontario, Canada.

An esteemed judging panel rated each water system on its flavor characteristics. Judges included Frank J. Blaha, P.E., a regional liaison at The Water Research Foundation with projects emphasizing asset management, infrastructure management, distribution systems and distribution system water quality concerns, as well as security/resilience issues; Jordan Kelly, lab manager at Odell Brewing Company's Quality Lab, where she coordinates and executes analytical, microbial, and sensory testing; and Victor Sam, a project engineer at Stantec with a background in taste and odor, focusing on algal metabolite control and treatment.

ACE21 All Virtual features more than 80 hours of learning through six professional tracks, delivered by knowledgeable and engaging presenters in the water sector on infrastructure, utility management, water quality, sustainability, resiliency and innovation.