Wareham water records show what turns tap water brown, which district serves you and who to call

WAREHAM Brown tap water has come out of Wareham faucets again and again over the past decade, after hydrant flushing, after water main breaks and from the iron and manganese that occur naturally in the town's groundwater, and in December 2025 the Wareham Fire District's water board heard about the "possibility of moving treatment for manganese to Seawood Springs," one of the district's two well fields, according to its minutes.

The Wareham Week reported brown water during hydrant flushing in May 2016, when the water superintendent at the time, Andrew Reid, said it came from iron and manganese sediment reacting with chlorine and posed no health risk; one resident told the paper the department's notice had fallen short, and Reid said the complaint pointed to a problem the department was working to fix through better outreach. In January 2019 a water main break inside the Maple Park Campground in East Wareham left homes in the Shangri-La neighborhood and on both sides of Glen Charlie Road with dirty water, and Reid told the paper, "If I had to guess, I'd say about half the town has brown water right now." In May 2023 the paper told residents to expect brown water during flushing downtown, in the Pinehurst neighborhood and on High Street.

In February 2026, a water main break on Cromesett Road brought a warning to customers that their water could be discolored as service came back, according to a 1st Responder News report credited to the Wareham Fire Department. EPA's drinking water records list no violation for the Wareham Fire District that began after January 2020. Iron and manganese fall under secondary standards, which the district's own report describes as protecting "the aesthetic qualities of drinking water" and as "not health based."

Which district serves your street

Wareham has two public water systems, the Wareham Fire District's water department at 2550 Cranberry Highway, which serves about 20,100 people, and the Onset Fire District's water department, which serves about 5,390, according to EPA's system records. The Wareham Fire District's own boundary map shows the Onset district covering Onset village and the Cranberry Highway corridor from east of Dick's Pond to the Bourne line, with the rest of town, including the East Wareham village center and Great Neck, served by the Wareham Fire District. Cranberry Highway in East Wareham runs through both districts, so the district named on a resident's water bill is the one to call.

What the records say

The Wareham Fire District draws its water from eight active wells in the Maple Springs and Seawood Springs areas, according to its report on 2025 water. Its Maple Springs Water Purification Plant, which started up in April 2021, works by "chemically treating and filtering iron and manganese out of the raw water," the report says, and "discolored water complaints related to iron and manganese have been dramatically reduced" since. The report ties the plant to Maple Springs Wells 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9 and lists Wells 6, 7 and 8 at the Seawood Springs well field.

At the Dec. 22, 2025, meeting, Superintendent Roy Maher updated commissioners on an equipment failure at Well 4 the week before, and the minutes record the "possibility of moving treatment for manganese to Seawood Springs" without recording a decision.

The 2025 report lists iron at up to 0.069 parts per million in samples taken from February to October 2025, against a secondary standard of 0.3, and manganese at up to 0.021 parts per million, against a standard of 0.05. When manganese tops 50 micrograms per liter, the same as 0.05 parts per million, "the water may be discolored and taste bad," the report says. It also says Well 3, built next to Maple Spring in the late 1940s, has needed cleaning almost every other year at a cost of almost $30,000 a cleaning, and that the district's goal is a replacement well "with better water quality farther away from the wetlands." Maher updated commissioners on test well pumping for that replacement on Aug. 10, 2026, and on its progress on Aug. 24, the minutes show.

The district's Board of Water Commissioners has also taken up its pipes, discussing main replacement at Weweantic Shores in March 2026 and at Swifts Beach and Weweantic Shores in May, and a possible new main on Franconia Avenue in August, according to its posted minutes.

Hydrant flushing can also discolor the water, and the district's April 2023 flushing notice warned of "the potential for dirty and discolored water" and said crews would put out yellow hydrant flushing signs and use a Reverse 911 system to tell customers when they would be in an area. As of Nov. 11, that 2023 notice and a 2023 flushing map were still the newest items on the district's flushing page, though commissioners heard an update on annual hydrant flushing on March 30, 2026.

On the Onset side, the Cranberry Highway main in East Wareham dated to 1924 when it broke in November 2018, an Onset water commissioner told The Wareham Week then, and Onset's superintendent at the time, Kevin Sampson, told the paper in May 2019 that brown water in that district was partly caused by street sweepers drawing from hydrants and stirring up mineral sediment in the pipes.

South Coast 360 reached out to Wareham Fire District Water Superintendent Roy Maher, who did not answer by publication.

What you can do when the water turns brown

• Call your own district first, the Wareham Fire District water department at 508-295-0450 or info.water@warehamfiredistrict.org, weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., or the Onset Fire District water department at 508-295-0603, the number on EPA's listing, and give your street address, the date and how long the water stayed brown.
• The Wareham Fire District's flushing notice tells customers to check the water before using it and says dirty water will clear if you wait a while.
• Sign up for the Wareham Fire District's Reverse 911 alerts through its website, which the district says it uses to tell customers when crews are flushing their area.
• The Wareham Week, citing the state Department of Environmental Protection, has advised residents not to use discolored water and to set aside water for drinking and cooking before flushing starts.

What happens next

The Wareham Fire District's Board of Water Commissioners meets next on Monday, Nov. 23, at 5:30 p.m. at 2550 Cranberry Highway, according to the meeting dates listed on its Nov. 9 agenda, and its regular agendas set aside an item for open public comment.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.