Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland, that provides drinking water and wastewater treatment
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC Water) is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland except for a few cities in both counties that continue to operate their own water facilities.
The Commission is one of the largest water and wastewater utilities in the United States. WSSC Water serves about 1.9 million people in an approximately 1,000-square-mile (2,600 km2) area. It owns and manages over 11,000 miles (18,000 km) of water and sewer mains.
Operations
A bi-county agency, WSSC Water has extensive regulatory functions. It promulgates and enforces the plumbing code for its jurisdiction as well as reviews and approves contract plans for extensions of water and sewer mains. The agency operates 3 reservoirs (plus shared access to a fourth reservoir), 2 drinking water filtration plants, and 6 water resource recovery facilities. It also collects wastewater which is treated at the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant (operated by DC Water) in Washington, D.C.
Facilities
Reservoirs
T. Howard Duckett Reservoir
Triadelphia Reservoir
Little Seneca Lake
Drinking water filtration plants
Patuxent
Potomac
Robert Morse (in operation 1936-1962)
Water Resource Recovery Facilities
Management
WSSC Water is overseen by six commissioners, three from Montgomery County and three from Prince George's County. These commissioners are appointed by their respective county executives with the approval of the county councils. The day-to-day operations are the responsibility of a general manager/chief executive officer, who supervises a staff of over 1,700.
The public source identifies “Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission” as bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland, that provides drinking water and wastewater treatment. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Washington, Suburban and Sanitary.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission”, the useful work is to connect “bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland, that provides drinking water and wastewater treatment” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7972332. VIAF identifies the subject as 159439381. The Library of Congress control number is n79145011. Authority coordinates are 39.089, -76.897. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.