Water & Sewer Division

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Mission Statement

The Water and Sewer Division strives to provide the highest quality drinking water possible, improve the water system infrastructure, including treatment and distribution, and maintain a network of sewer pipe and facilities to ensure the safe collection and discharge of the Town's wastewater.

Duties & Responsibilities

The Town of Tewksbury's water system includes a Water Treatment Plant, which has a capacity to treat up to seven million gallons a day of water. This six-acre facility is located on the banks of the Merrimack River, which is also the source of raw water for the Town. There is two pressure boosting stations and three storage tanks with a total storage capacity of seven million gallons. The distribution system also contains thousands of line gates, hydrants, and over 180 miles of water mains and water service lines used to convey potable water to over 10,000 residential and commercial facilities. 

Staff

The Town's staff is responsible for installing, repairing, and maintaining all components of the water system and for meeting all of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations concerning water quality. Residential customers are billed bi-annually and commercial accounts on a quarterly basis. The water consumption is also used to determine the customer's sewer charge.

The Water and Sewer staff also maintains the entire sewer system network and ensures the safe and proper discharge of the Town's wastewater. The majority of the system's build-out has been completed as of November 2009 exclusive of roadway paving. In 2004, the Town had only eleven pumping stations and now miles of forced and gravity main and lateral services have been added. As of November 2009, the Town now has 46 pumping stations, adding 35 additional pump stations around town. Tewksbury's wastewater is conveyed to the Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility by interceptors.

Repair

The Water and Sewer staff oversees the provision of quality water, repairs water pumping equipment, maintains system hydraulics, and handles consumer complaints. The Water and Sewer staff also repairs and replaces meters and maintains and repairs the entire water system piping network with all associated valves and shut-offs and approximately 2,500 fire hydrants.

Pumping Stations

Pumping stations are maintained on a regular basis and grinder pumps when needed. The Water and Sewer Division flushes water mains to reduce the number of backups and responds to assist residents when backups occur, identifying the problem and making repairs as needed to the Town's system. Collection system testing is carried out to continue efforts to remove inflow and infiltration (I and I) from entering the system. To minimize contamination of heavy metals, the staff has established a pretreatment program with industrial users to expel industrial wastes before entering the Town's system. Pretreatment inspections are conducted bi-annually.

The system operates as an enterprise fund. This means that water and sewer fees charged to customers are used to cover all operating and capital expenses.

For all water and sewer bill questions please contact Bill Blakeney by calling 978-640-4350. He is located at the Town Annex at:

11 Town Hall Avenue
Tewksbury, MA 01876