The Whitinsville Water Company (WWC) was incorporated in 1954, however, the infrastructure of the system has been providing service since the late eighteen hundreds.
The Borough of Whitinsville is located within the Town of Northbridge which is 12 miles southeast of Worcester. Whitinsville is an old mill town that centered around the Whitin Machine Works which was a prominent manufacturer in its day supplying equipment to the fabric industry for many years. Like many villages of the Industrial Revolution, the mill owners provided many of the essential services to the area, one of which was starting a water supply for domestic, power and fire protection purposes.
The water supply is unique in that it is classified as a ground water supply yet depends extensively on a series of five reservoirs to satisfy demand. The company owns over 1,600 acres of undeveloped watershed land which protects the five reservoirs. There are two tubular well fields located adjacent to reservoirs. The reservoir water is used to recharge the ground water near the wells with the earth acting as a filter. Each well field also has state of the art treatment facilities which ensures the highest water quality is maintianed. The system has the capacity to produce more than 2.5 MGD.
The WWC provides water service to a population of 14,000 throughout the Town of Northbridge in addition to providing operations contracts to an additional 1100 customers in three surrounding water systems. Many more neighboring water systems depend on the WWC to provide repairs and maintenance of their water system due to the fact WWC owns an extensive line construction equipment.
Links to other water related websites:
American Water Works Association
New England Water Works Association
Massachusetts Water Works Association