Massachusetts Water Resources Authority

Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
MWRA
Official seal of the MWRA
Agency overview
Formed1985 (1985)
Preceding agency
  • Metropolitan District Commission
JurisdictionGreater Boston & MetroWest
HeadquartersCharlestown Navy Yard
100 First Avenue
Boston, MA 02129
Employees1,205[1]
Agency executives
Child agency
Key document
  • MWRA Enabling Act of 1984
Websitewww.mwra.com

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to 3.1 million people in sixty-one municipalities and more than 5,500 large industrial users in the eastern and central parts of the state, primarily in the Boston area.[2]

A map of Massachusetts aqueducts from 2014

The authority receives water from the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs and the Ware River in central and western Massachusetts. For sewage, it operates a large treatment center on Deer Island at the mouth of Boston Harbor, among other properties.

The modern MWRA was created in 1985 after being split from the Metropolitan District Commission. It gained the ability to raise its own revenues and issues its own bonds.[3] The Department of Conservation and Recreation is the successor to the MDC, and still maintains the watershed lands.

  1. ^ "MWRA – Organization and Management".
  2. ^ "MASSACHUSETTS WATER RESOURCES AUTHORITY" (PDF). MWRA. 2022. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference 5year was invoked but never defined (see the help page).