Burlington Admitted Into the MWRA Water System

MWRA welcomes the town of Burlington's admission into the water system, where it joins 60 other communities with accessibility to the nation’s best drinking water sourced from pristine reservoirs and delivered through a state-of-the-art monitored system. For many years, Burlington has had difficulty meeting demands with their local sources due to water quality issues. Connecting to MWRA will allow Burlington to abandon local water supply wells with poor water quality and replace that water with high quality water from MWRA.

After applying in 2020, Burlington was approved for admission to the MWRA water system to purchase water to be supplied via MWRA’s Northern Extra High (NEH) Pressure Zone. This admission was also aided by the September 2022 decision by the MWRA's Board of Director's to temporarily waive admission fees to the water system in order to help communities address water quality, supply and infrastructure challenges.

The NEH Pressure Zone provides water to Arlington, Bedford (through Lexington), Belmont, Lexington, Waltham, and Winchester. To allow for the connection by Burlington, MWRA constructed a portion of the Northern Extra High redundancy project extending Section 63 by approximately 5,200 linear feet. Burlington completed construction of approximately 10,000 feet of 24-inch diameter water main to the new MWRA meter in Lexington (still to be completed). Construction Contract 6522 was the first of three construction contracts that, in addition to providing a connection to Burlington, will also improve hydraulic conditions and provide redundancy for communities of the NEH Pressure Zone. Additionally, this contract included installation of 5,200 linear feet of 16-inch diameter local water main for the town of Lexington.