The Duxbury Water Department, part of the town's Water & Sewer Department, serves an estimated 16,445 residents according to state-compiled public water system data — a figure slightly above the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 population estimate for the whole town (16,377), which is common when a served-population figure is estimated separately from the decennial census. Duxbury's 2020 Census population was 16,090.
Water comes from twelve gravel-packed groundwater wells at eight well sites: two wells each at Tremont Street, Mayflower, Evergreen Street, and Damon, plus single wells at Millbrook, Lakeshore Drive, Partridge Road, and Depot Street. Two of those sites are currently offline — Partridge Road (closed in 2021 due to PFAS) and Depot Street (offline since 2014, originally for high manganese, and now also a candidate for PFAS treatment before it returns to service). The town also purchases water through an intermunicipal connection with the Town of Marshfield that supplies roughly 150 homes in the Gurnet Road / Duxbury Beach neighborhood — notably, reporting in 2026 found no formal, signed intermunicipal water supply contract governs that arrangement, despite Duxbury paying Marshfield commercial rates for it over a period of years.
Public water system identifier: PWS ID MA4082000 (EPA SDWIS / MassDEP Drinking Water Program).
Duxbury has one formal Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) violation on record, tied to the Partridge Road well's PFAS6 readings exceeding the Massachusetts 20 ppt combined standard after the compound was first detected there in 2021. The town took the well offline the same year, and it has not returned to service.
Here's where public trackers genuinely disagree, and we think it's worth saying so rather than picking whichever framing is more convenient: because Partridge Road is offline and excluded from current compliance reporting, at least one public compilation (EWG/tapwaterdata.com, last updated July 2025) currently shows "0" MCL violations for the system as presently configured. Both statements are technically accurate depending on whether you count the 2021 violation that led to a well being shut down, or only count what's currently being reported for the wells still pumping. We think the honest version includes both: there was a real violation, the town's response was to close the affected source, and the system has not recorded a new one since — but several currently active wells are now approaching or exceeding a newer, stricter federal standard that didn't exist in 2021 (see below).
Duxbury's PFAS story has two layers, and conflating them makes the picture either scarier or more reassuring than it actually is:
Layer one — Massachusetts' combined PFAS6 standard (20 ppt): With Partridge Road excluded, the water actually reaching taps has recently tested under 10 ppt combined PFAS6, comfortably under the state limit.
Layer two — the federal individual PFOA/PFOS standard (4 ppt each), finalized in April 2024: This is where Duxbury's picture gets more complicated. According to Water and Sewer Advisory Board data reported by the Duxbury Clipper and South Shore News in 2026, five of the town's eight currently pumping well sites test above the 4 ppt individual limit for PFOA — a limit that didn't exist when Partridge Road was closed in 2021, and one enforcement of which is not required until later this decade.
| Well / source | Status | Recent PFOA / PFAS reading | Applicable limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partridge Road | Closed since 2021 | 73–142 ppt PFAS6 (2021–2024) | 20 ppt (MA PFAS6) |
| Lakeshore Drive | Active; shutdown recommended by Water & Sewer Advisory Board | ~4.8 ppt average (last 4 samples above 4 ppt) | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
| Damon 1 & 2 | Active | Above 4 ppt PFOA | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
| Millbrook | Active | Above 4 ppt PFOA | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
| Depot Street | Offline since 2014 (manganese; also PFAS treatment candidate) | Elevated PFAS reported | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
| Tremont St., Mayflower, Evergreen St. | Active | Below 4 ppt | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
| Marshfield connection (Gurnet Rd., ~150 homes) | Active, purchased water | 6.07–6.97 ppt (Apr. 2026 sample); up to ~10 ppt (2024) | 4 ppt (federal PFOA) |
ppt = parts per trillion. Sources: Duxbury Clipper, "PFAS problems still on tap" and "Moving forward on PFAS" (2026); South Shore News, "Elevated PFAS Contamination Found in Duxbury's Operating and Intermunicipal Wells" and "What's in the Water: A South Shore News Investigation" (2026), citing Water and Sewer Advisory Board testing data and Superintendent Mark Cloud's April 2026 sampling. Marshfield's own system separately shows three of seven active wells exceeding the same federal PFOA limit, per the same reporting.
Suspected contributing sources under review include a former municipal landfill and an older private landfill (the "McNeil dump"), both off Mayflower Street, and — as one possibility raised in reporting — a former furniture-stripping business near South Station Street. None of these has been confirmed as the definitive source in what we've been able to verify from public reporting; we'll update this page if a more conclusive source investigation is published.
The Water and Sewer Advisory Board has recommended shutting down the Lakeshore Drive well, which supplies roughly 150–200 homes on Lake Shore Drive and Pine Street directly (ahead of blending into the Birch Street storage tank). A temporary treatment facility for that well was evaluated at roughly $4 million with about a year to install; the board has also looked at returning Depot Street to service once it's treated.
Longer-term, the town is planning two permanent granular activated carbon (GAC) treatment plants: one pairing the Depot Street and Tremont Street wells, and another pairing the Damon and Millbrook wells. Design and permitting funding to date totals roughly $1.92 million (including a $399,000 pilot study and $182,780 in consulting costs), with additional design funding of about $1.6 million sought and a construction cost estimate of roughly $78.8 million discussed at Town Meeting in 2026 — though we'd flag that reported cost figures for this project have grown and varied across different points in the process (an earlier plan cited a combined $43 million figure), which is normal for a capital project still in design, but worth knowing rather than repeating one number as if it were final.
To help pay for treatment, water rates rose roughly 30% in April 2025, with a cumulative increase of up to 105% projected between fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2029 — the first rate increase since 2010. The town has also asked residents to cut water use: Duxbury's per-person usage has run around 80 gallons per day against a MassDEP guideline of 65, and the town used over 570 million gallons last year against a roughly 379.6-million-gallon guideline-based target, prompting proposed outdoor watering restrictions.
Compliance deadlines: MassDEP's own timeline and the original federal rule both point to 2029; EPA's April 2024 rule set 2029 as the federal compliance deadline nationally, with a proposed (not yet final, as of this writing) two-year extension to 2031 for PFOA/PFOS specifically — see the Regulatory Timeline below.
How the rules around PFAS in drinking water have actually changed over the past several years — and where they stand right now.
MassDEP finalized an enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 20 parts per trillion (ppt) for the sum of six PFAS compounds ("PFAS6") — PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA, PFHpA, and PFDA. Massachusetts was among the first states in the country with a legally enforceable PFAS drinking water standard; there was still no federal one. This is the standard behind Duxbury's 2021 Partridge Road violation, and the one the town's blended, in-service water currently meets.
The EPA's National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) set the first-ever enforceable federal limits for PFAS: 4 ppt each for PFOA and PFOS individually, 10 ppt each for PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA (GenX), plus a combined Hazard Index limit for mixtures of those and PFBS. Water systems were given until 2027 to complete initial monitoring and until 2029 to come into full compliance. This is the standard that five of Duxbury's eight pumping well sites, plus the Marshfield connection, currently test above for PFOA.
On May 18, 2026, EPA proposed keeping the PFOA and PFOS limits at 4 ppt each, but allowing water systems to request a two-year compliance extension — to 2031 instead of 2029. In a separate proposal, EPA moved to rescind the individual limits for PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA and the Hazard Index for PFAS mixtures, citing procedural requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The PFOA and PFOS limits themselves were not proposed for rescission — which matters for Duxbury, since PFOA is the compound driving its exceedances. EPA held a virtual public hearing on July 7, 2026, and the public comment docket remained open through July 20, 2026; EPA has said it intends to finalize both rules before the end of 2026. As of this writing, neither proposal has been finalized — check EPA's site directly for the current status before assuming either is settled.
Sources: Mass.gov — Massachusetts PFAS Drinking Water Standard (MCL); Federal Register — PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (April 2024); EPA — Proposed PFOA and PFOS Compliance Extension Rule; EPA — Proposed PFAS Rescission Rule.
We don't ask you to take our word for any of this. The underlying reports and data are public:
System-wide data only tells part of the story — which well serves your street, your home's plumbing, and how long water sits in your pipes can all change what actually comes out of your tap.
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