West Roxbury Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a neighborhood in Boston — a major southwest Boston neighborhood (West Roxbury is a significant Boston neighborhood — one of the most suburban-feeling Boston neighborhoods, with tree-lined streets, single-family homes, and a quiet residential character that makes it feel more like a New England suburb than a dense urban neighborhood; West Roxbury was an independent town that was annexed by Boston in 1874, and it retains its own distinct community identity), home of the Bussey Brook Meadow and Arnold Arboretum (the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University's West Roxbury–Jamaica Plain edge is one of the most important botanical collections in North America), a diverse Boston community with a historically Irish-American and now increasingly diverse professional population (West Roxbury has been historically one of the most Irish-American neighborhoods in Boston — a working-class and middle-class Boston Police and firefighter community), home of the West Roxbury VA Medical Center, and adjacent to Dedham and Roslindale — draws its municipal water supply via the MWRA. Water hardness in West Roxbury measures 83 mg/L — classified as moderately soft.

West Roxbury's moderate softness reflects the MWRA Quabbin–Wachusett supply's calcareous-poor character. The MWRA distributes Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoir supply (draining Precambrian Massachusetts granite — calcareous-poor) to southwest Boston, producing the moderately soft 83 mg/L.

With hardness at 83 mg/L, West Roxbury residents enjoy moderately soft water. MWRA consistently delivers water meeting all Massachusetts DEP and EPA Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.