Maynard's water needs, past, present and future

SUMMARY: Maynard initiated town water in 1889 with White Pond (Hudson/Stow border) as the source. Wells were added starting in 1965 and White Pond discontinued in 1990. Maynard currently operates seven wells at three well fields. Its water needs going forward depend on population predictions; stay under 12,000 (currently about 11,000) and the town can probably make do with adding wells at existing sites, but grow more than that and it may need to either revive White Pond or connect to the Quabbin Reservoir system. Regardless of sources, the existing treatment facilities need upgrading.

Undated aerial photo of Maynard's two water tanks atop Summer
Hill before a roof was added to the original, 1889 tank.
Photo courtesy of Maynard Historical Society Archive.

During the early 1800s Assabet Village was a small community flanking the Assabet River, with bridges crossing at what are now Route 117 and Mill Street. Water supply was via wells that reached aquafers at depths of 30-80 feet. Wells were either private or else public wells that homeowners could visit with barrels on wagons or sleds. Starting in 1847 the village grew rapidly with the beginning and expansion of the woolen mill, reaching a population of 2,700 by the 1890 census. Delivering piped water directly to homes and businesses and fire hydrants had started just a year earlier. That system involved water flowing from White Pond to Maynard, then being pumped to an open-to-the air tank able to hold 1.5 million gallons constructed atop Summer Hill. From that high point, gravity provides the water pressure to all parts of Maynard. The original pipeline was replaced in 1942. The town's annual reports describe the expansion of the water system as the population grew through decades, including adding a roof to the original tank and construction of a second water tank in 1972. The mill had its own, smaller, water tank, near Amory Maynard's mansion.

Water is provided to hundreds 
of fire hydrants. Color indicates
water flow capacity, with blue 
best, then green, yellow and red.

Maynard was drilling test wells as early as 1957 to supplement pond water. Massachusetts suffered a multi-year drought in the early 1960s, causing a perilously low water level at White Pond. Toward the end of 1964, Robert Quirk drilled a successful well in the Old Marlborough Road area and started selling water to the town. In following years land was seized by eminent domain so as to create well fields and water treatment plants (WTPs) at Old Marlboro Road (OMR) starting in 1967, and Green Meadow (GM) in 1975. These accessed shallow aquifers at depths under 80 feet. In 2000, a third well field and treatment plant were added at Rockland Avenue (RA) to access bedrock water at 400 feet. Collectively, there are seven active wells that have a capacity to deliver an average of 1.1 million gallons per day (MGD), which exceeds Maynard's current needs.  

Each WTP faces unique challenges, including aging infrastructure, water quality issues, and regulatory compliance requirements. The primary water quality concerns include discoloring iron and manganese, and also per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the water supply, as well as elevated chlorine disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in the distribution system. These water supply issues have caused operational difficulties at the WTPs, leading the Town to limit rate of withdrawal of well water to improve water quality. PFAS, sometimes referred to as "forever chemicals," have for decades been used in food packaging and household products and fire extinguishing foam, and subsequently widely contaminate food and water supplies. Exposure to PFAS appears to have multiple, serious, health consequences. Massachusetts has a current upper limit of 20 nanograms per liter (also described as part per trillion) for PFAS. Town reports show Maynard's supply below that limit. However, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is considering a lower limit in the future. All of Maynard's WTPs would need to be improved to comply. 

Map of central Massachusetts showing
Quabbin Reservoir and Framingham, with a 
pipeline needed from Framingham to Maynard

Currently, usage is about 50 gallons per person per day. Pipe leakage is under ten percent (a significant improvement from 10 or 20 years ago). Additions to housing in the form of single family homes, town houses, condominiums and apartments are either in progress, planned, or projected. There are contradictory estimates of the extent of this future demand. Current population is a tad under 11,000. One report predicts a population plateau at about 11,500, in which case existing wellfields - perhaps with adding a well or two - will suffice. However, the more recent report, a 50-year MasterPlan, at https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4162/Maynard-Master-Plan-2025-Final-w-appendices?bidId= projects out to 2075 and anticipates for a much higher population, on the order of 16,000 to 19,000 (modeled on past population increases in Waltham). A second rationale for increasing capacity is to have redundancy in case an existing well fails. All this would mean adding either a Quabbin Reservoir connection north from Framingham or reactivating White Pond. Either of those two options would be at least 20 years in the future at a cost exceeding $50 million. Included in that would be creation of a new water treatment plant to process water from OMR, GM and the new pipeline. 

In recent years, Maynard has issued a mandatory "Seasonal Water Use Restriction" either time-of-day limiting or prohibiting non-essential outdoor water use, i.e., lawn and garden watering, from May through September. The purpose of time-of-day restriction that still allows watering either before 9:00 a.m. and after 5:00 p.m. is to curtail peak daytime use; otherwise Maynard would have to extract a higher volume per hour with the consequence of higher iron and manganese content that requires more demineralization to prevent discolored water. Last year, because of regional drought, the restriction started in April and prohibited any watering Monday through Friday.    

During a low-water moment, summer of 2015, yours
truly stepped into the Assabet River at the Rail
Trail bridge and walked to the Mill Street bridge.
Sights along the way included an active beaver lodge.

Water in, water out. The great majority of water supplied to Maynard ends up as wastewater, either to septic systems or processed and discharged to the Assabet River. As described above, the town's centralized water supply system dates back to 1889, but Maynard did not create a wastewater collection and treatment system until about 40 years later. The system was upgraded in the 1970s, but still inadequate, as were the discharges from several wastewater treatment facilities in upriver towns. In 1982 an author described the dam-created pond bordering Powdermill Road as "...the river smell is nauseating, reeking like an unpumped-out campground outhouse times ten." Upriver newspapers referred to the river as the "state cesspool." Key to the problem was the Assabet being less of a river and more of a series of ponds created by factory mill dams. Industrial discharges and wastewater nitrogen and phosphorus were trapped in the ponds' sediments rather than being flushed by spring floods, leading to eutrophic algae blooms, rotting plant matter and fishkills. Major wastewater treatment upgrades starting in the 1980s now mean that wastewater discharges are cleaner than the river it is put in to, and the net effect up and down the river is boatable and approaching swimmable. Learn more about the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord rivers at https://oars3rivers.org/