The big (10 foot) pipe that brings Boston it’s water has suffered a break and we have all been instructed to boil our water.  I see on the MWRA web site that they  deliver  167 million gallons of water to 2.5 million residents a day.  That comes out to 66.8 gallons per person per day.  Of course they also deliver water to industry … and more typical leaks.

The paper says that the leak was dumping 8 million gallons an hour into the river.  167 gallons/day is equivalent to about 7 million gallons an hour.

This water is drawn from some resevours in the middle of the state.  The largest of which holds 417 billion  gallons, or 6.7 years to draw down at 167 million a day.