The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to certain municipalities and industrial users in the state, primarily in the Boston area. The authority receives water from the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs and the Ware River in central and western Massachusetts. For sewage, it operates an effluent tunnel in Boston Harbor for treated sewage as well as a treatment center on Deer Island at the mouth of the harbor, among other properties. The modern MWRA was created in 1985 after being split from the Metropolitan District Commission. It gained the ability to raise its own revenues and issues its own bonds. The Department of Conservation and Recreation is the successor to the MDC, and still maintains the watershed lands. Service area The MWRA service area covers mostly communities in Greater Boston and MetroWest. Three communities (Chicopee, Wilbraham, and South Hadley) are in Western Massachusetts. The table below shows which communities get which services. Water system The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) own and operate the collection, treatment, distribution, and storage facilities that supply drinking water to some forty municipalities in the metropolitan Boston area. This water system design was based upon the purchase and subsequent protection of an entire watershed. This design assures that the water remains as pristine as possible. However, modern regulations require that all supplies of drinking water be chemically treated regardless of the source. Additions to the MWRA water system throughout its history have resulted in redundancies that allow major sections of the water system to be shut down for repair or maintenance. The MWRA Operations Control Center is in Chelsea. Water sources Primary sources: Quabbin Reservoir – storage capacity Wachusett Reservoir – storage capacity Ware River (during high flow only) Backup sources: Sudbury Reservoir – storage capacity Foss Reservoir, a.k.a. Framingham Reservoir No. 3 – storage capacity Eastbound water flow Water bound for Greater Boston flows from the MWRA's main storage facility, the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, through the Quabbin Aqueduct to the Wachusett Reservoir in and around Boylston and Clinton. Tributary rivers and streams comprising the Wachusett watershed, a 108 square mile (280 square kilometer) drainage basin, also feed the Wachusett Reservoir. The Cosgrove Tunnel carries water from there to the John J. Carroll Water Treatment Plant, located at the