Mission Hill Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

Mission Hill, Massachusetts, in Suffolk County — a Boston neighborhood adjacent to Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, home of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, on the elevated Mission Hill ridge in southwest Boston — receives its municipal water from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC), drawing from the Quabbin Reservoir and Wachusett Reservoir through the MWRA system serving the greater Boston metro.

The moderately hard 109 mg/L hardness and TDS of 274.8 mg/L are harder than expected for the Quabbin-Wachusett system (typically reported as softer — ~50-80 mg/L at the reservoir), suggesting the Mission Hill distribution zone data captures blended supply or distribution system mineral pickup in the aging Boston infrastructure. All MWRA communities receive the same Quabbin-Wachusett source — the Central Massachusetts crystalline upland watershed draining Devonian schist and gneiss (largely insoluble), producing one of the softest major US city supplies from the source.

At 109 mg/L at the tap, Mission Hill residents should note that source water is much softer — distribution system effects may contribute. Annual descaling is sufficient. The PFAS level of 10.7 ppt is elevated and warrants a certified reverse osmosis drinking water filter — Hanscom Air Force Base (Bedford, MA — AFFF PFAS in the Sudbury-Concord watershed), Naval Air Station South Weymouth legacy, and the MWRA metro watershed PFAS industrial legacy contribute to Mission Hill's elevated readings.