THE WATUPPA WATER BOARD AND CITY OF FALL RIVER WATER DEPARTMENT 508-324-2330 The City of Fall River’s Water Department began service to the public in 1874, following three years of construction of water mains and the first pumping station and standpipe, which is still visible at the Maintenance Division at the top of Bedford Street. Early demand was set to a limit of 1,500,000 gallons of water each day. Today the Department supplies an average of 12,700,000 gallons of purified water to the City with ‘peak’ summer demand reaching almost 20,000,000 gallons daily. The City receives its water from two protected sources, the North Watuppa Pond and the Copicut Reservoir. The City of Fall River owns both of its reservoirs along with their watersheds. These encompass over 8,500 acres of land and surface water, and no activity that would endanger the high quality of the City’s water supply is allowed on any property. The Department also owns or controls other area ponds and has extensive holdings of water rights in the greater Fall River area. The three-member Watuppa Water Board governs the Water Department with all Department staff reporting directly to the Director of Public Works. All meetings of this citizen board are open to the general public and a schedule of meetings may be obtained by contacting the Clerk at (508) 324-2335. The Water Department supplies a current service base of 100,000 customers. It has over 230 miles of distribution system plumbing. To add pressure to the system water is stored in seven storage tanks. These hold a reserve of 18,000,000 gallons of water. Water pressure in the distribution system is regulated by the level of these tanks and ranges from a low of 26 PSI to a high of 125 PSI. The water supply of the City of Fall River is regarded as one of the best in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to preserve this an extensive distribution system upgrading is going on that will replace an expected 50 miles of pipes over the next 7 years. This coupled with an aggressive program of water supply protection and improvements to our pumping and filtration facilities, assures the City of continued high quality water service and fire protection as we enter this, our third century of service to the City.