Wastewater Treatment

The Commission's System is comprised of utility pipes, pump stations, and other ancillary structures, located within the Lancaster Sewer District. The effluent flowing through those pipes is carried to the Waste Water Treatment Facility (WWTF) in the Town of Clinton owned and operated by the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA).

The MWRA is a Massachusetts public authority split from the Metropolitan District Commission and established by an act of the Legislature in 1984 to provide wholesale water and sewer services to 2.5 million people and more than 5,500 large industrial users in 61 metropolitan Boston communities. Additionally, because of an agreement between the Town of Clinton and the MWRA regarding the Wachusett Reservoir and Dam, the MWRA also maintains the regional Waste WWTF in the Town of Clinton which serves the Town of Clinton and the Lancaster Sewer District.

The Clinton MWRA WWTF was first built in the early 1950's and it is much different today than it was then. The original facility operated much in the way a traditional septic system works. It collected all of the effluent and put it through a series of settling tanks to remove the solids and then pumped the liquids to a huge filter bed located in Lancaster near the Lee Street area.

The facility was last updated in 1992 and is now a state of the art secondary treatment facility designed to treat as much as 10 million gallons per day of effluent. The plant provides secondary treatment using an activated sludge process in combination with advanced nutrient removal and dechlorination.

For more information on the Clinton WWTF, please visit the MWRA's Website.