The Cleaner, Greener, More Affordable Water Cooler for Boston

The history of Boston is filled with the constant struggle to provide enough quality water to a continuously growing population. The story begins in 1623 when Reverend William Blackstone became the first settler to drink Boston water from “The Great Spring” on the Shawmut Peninsula.

The Great Spring provided Boston drinking water for over 2 centuries. In the 1800s, the city population ballooned, and residents had to look beyond The Great Spring. City planners began to pull Boston tap water from the Jamaica Pond using wooden pipes, which offered minimal pressure and would eventually rot, leak, and split. By the 1830s, Boston grew even more, and so too did the demand for water. Urban developers turned to an upland source of water that did not require filtration, and in the 1840s, they created the Lake Cochituate Reservoir from Long Pond.

Within 2 decades, Lake Cochituate had difficulties supplying enough water, especially during the summer, and the Boston water quality did not meet safety standards by 1980. The resulting Metropolitan Water Act of 1895 called for a new water source from the Wachusett Dam at the Nashua River. The city went on to build the Quabbin Reservoir at the Swift River. At its completion in 1946, the 412-billion-gallon reservoir represented the largest man-made reservoir in the world devoted solely to water supply.

Today, Boston sources its water from the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs, which supply a combined 200 million gallons of water daily. But, as The Standells song goes: Boston has “dirty water.” Residents couldn’t agree more, and complain of medicinal, rotten egg, earthy tasting water. The Boylston Street Main, the Beacon Street Main, and the Wachusett Reservoir were all built before 1900, and like many older cities, much of Boston’s original cast iron water infrastructure is still in use. These pipes are prone to corrosion and biofilm contamination from chemical reactions, which create clusters of pipe deterioration and bacteria along the inside of the pipe.

To combat the corrosion and biofilm contamination, municipal water departments add high levels of chlorine, which give Boston tap water a medicinal taste and odor. Although the government continues to monitor and treat water pollutants, reports show that old pipes may compromise Boston water quality with harmful contaminants including lead.