About us

A plain-language watchdog for Scituate's water supply

We're neighbors, not regulators — reading the same public data everyone has access to, and being upfront when that data doesn't add up cleanly.

Our mission

Scituate Water Watch exists to make water quality information accessible to every household in town — and to be honest about the limits of that information. Scituate's supply is a genuine patchwork of wells, ponds, and a cross-town agreement with Marshfield, which makes it harder to summarize than a single-source system.

We collect what's publicly available, note where sources disagree, and point back to the utility's own reporting whenever we can.

How we started

This began when a group of residents tried to answer a simple question — "has our water ever failed a federal standard?" — and got different answers from different public trackers. Instead of picking the version that made the best headline, we decided to lay out the discrepancy itself and keep tracking it as better data becomes available.

Illustrated silhouettes of Scituate community members

What we do

Monitor

We track EPA SDWIS records, Massachusetts DEP filings, and the Scituate Water Division's own published reports, and note when they don't agree.

Explain

A five-source water system is genuinely more complicated than most towns'. We break down what each source contributes and what that means for your neighborhood specifically.

Connect

If you want a household-level answer rather than a system-wide summary, we help connect residents with free testing.

A note on independence

Scituate Water Watch is an independent, volunteer-run initiative. We are not affiliated with the Town of Scituate or the Scituate Water Division, and we don't speak on their behalf. Everything we publish links back to its original public source so you can verify it yourself.