We're kicking off this initiative with the fact that surprised us most once we started digging: Abington doesn't have its own water utility. Every drop that comes out of an Abington tap runs through the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works (ARJWW) — one combined system, one EPA Public Water System ID (MA4001000), jointly governed by both towns since the 1880s, with three treatment plants (Myers Avenue in Abington, Hannigan in Rockland, Great Sandy Bottom Pond in Pembroke) blending into a single distribution network. There's no separate "Abington water quality record" — whatever shows up in the data belongs to both towns equally.
That structure is also why Abington's biggest recent water story is a PFAS one. Starting in March 2021, the Hannigan plant's source water tested above Massachusetts' 20 parts-per-trillion PFAS6 standard, with exceedances recurring into 2024 and a July 2024 raw-water sample at Myers Avenue measuring PFOS at 18.8 ppt — well above the federal 4 ppt individual limit. Abington and Rockland responded by jointly borrowing roughly $26 million for new treatment systems. The Hannigan plant's permanent system came online in March 2026, reducing PFAS6 to non-detect; Myers Avenue's project is still working toward the same result, with an interim pilot system keeping levels below the state limit in the meantime.
Add in a cluster of 2014–2015 disinfection byproduct violations, a May 2025 E. coli-triggered boil-water order that reached five towns, and a genuinely clean 2024 lead-service-line inventory, and you get a system that's had real problems and has been visibly working through them — which is exactly the kind of nuance we think deserves a plain-language home. See the full breakdown on our Water data page.
Long before there was a federal PFAS rule, there was a Massachusetts one. In October 2020, MassDEP finalized an enforceable drinking water standard — a Maximum Contaminant Level, or MCL — of 20 parts per trillion for the combined total of six PFAS compounds, a grouping the state calls "PFAS6": PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA, PFHpA, and PFDA.
At the time, this made Massachusetts one of a small number of states with any enforceable PFAS standard at all. For the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works, this is the exact standard its Hannigan plant fell out of compliance with starting in March 2021 — and the standard its new treatment systems are now built to meet. As of March 2026, Hannigan's finished water tests at non-detect for PFAS6, comfortably under the 20 ppt threshold.
Source: Mass.gov — Massachusetts PFAS Drinking Water Standard (MCL).
Until April 2024, there was no federal limit on PFAS in drinking water at all — only the Massachusetts state standard set in 2020. That changed when EPA finalized its National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) for PFAS: the first time PFAS compounds have been individually, enforceably regulated at the federal level.
The rule set limits of 4 parts per trillion (ppt) each for PFOA and PFOS, 10 ppt each for three additional compounds (PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA), and a combined "Hazard Index" limit for mixtures of those plus PFBS. Water systems nationwide were given until 2027 to complete initial monitoring and until 2029 to come into full compliance.
For the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works, this rule wasn't an abstraction: a combined raw-water sample collected at Myers Avenue on July 30, 2024 measured PFOS at 18.8 ppt — nearly five times the new 4 ppt individual limit. That reading, in raw source water ahead of treatment, is part of what makes the ongoing Myers Avenue treatment project a genuine compliance necessity rather than a precaution.
Source: Federal Register — PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation.
We're not going to soften this and we're not going to overstate it either: the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works has a real, documented PFAS history, and it is actively, visibly resolving it. The Hannigan plant's source water exceeded Massachusetts' 20 ppt PFAS6 standard starting in March 2021, with exceedances recurring in 2024. A raw-water sample at Myers Avenue in July 2024 measured PFOS above the federal individual limit. Both towns responded with a joint $26 million investment in new GAC and resin treatment.
As of this writing, the Hannigan plant's permanent treatment system has been online since March 4, 2026 and is reducing PFAS6 to non-detect. The Myers Avenue plant currently relies on an interim pilot system that keeps finished water below the 20 ppt limit while its own permanent system is completed. We'll update this page as soon as we can confirm Myers Avenue's permanent system is fully online — treat that specific detail as still in motion rather than settled.
See the full compound-by-compound and plant-by-plant breakdown on our Water data page.
On May 18, 2026, EPA announced two proposals that affect the federal PFAS rule described above. The first (Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2025-1742) would let water systems request a two-year extension — from 2029 to 2031 — to comply with the enforceable limits for PFOA and PFOS, while requiring systems measuring 12 ppt or higher to take short-term mitigation action during the extension. The second (Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0654) would rescind the individual limits for three other PFAS compounds (PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA/GenX) and the combined "Hazard Index" limit for mixtures of those plus PFBS, on the grounds that EPA says the prior process didn't follow required Safe Drinking Water Act procedure.
What doesn't change: the 4 ppt limits for PFOA and PFOS individually are not part of either rescission proposal. That distinction actually matters here in a way it might not for a system with clean PFAS results: the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works has recorded a raw-water PFOS reading well above 4 ppt, so the extension proposal — and its 12 ppt mitigation trigger — is directly relevant to how the Myers Avenue project's timeline gets treated going forward, not just a policy abstraction.
EPA held a virtual public hearing on July 7, 2026, and the comment dockets remained open through July 20, 2026, with more than 15,000 comments submitted as of mid-July. Nothing here is final; treat the 2024 rule as the current baseline until EPA actually finalizes a change.
See the full regulatory timeline for how this fits with the 2020 state standard and the 2024 federal rule.
System-wide data only tells part of the story — service lines, home plumbing, and private wells can all change what actually comes out of your tap.
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