Massachusetts is the state here that does not fit the shape of the others. There is no water loss audit and no water balance to file. Under the Water Management Act, MassDEP sets performance standards and public water suppliers report against them on the Annual Statistical Report, filed through eDEP.
The two standards
MassDEP’s standards, as stated in the department’s own performance standards file, are unaccounted-for water of no more than 10 percent, and residential water use of no more than 65 gallons per person per day.
Both are percentages and rates against a standard rather than components of a balance, which is why the Massachusetts pages on this site are shaped differently from the Texas or Georgia ones. A state reporting a component water balance gets a ledger; a state reporting a figure against a standard gets the review.
What MassDEP does with it
The department reviews what a supplier reports and may adjust it. The published record carries both numbers: residential use as the supplier submitted it, and the value the department accepted, with the department’s adjustment category and its comment. Publishing only one of those would hide the disagreement, which is the most interesting thing in the file.
What this site does not claim
Two limits, and both are properties of the published record rather than of any system.
The department’s wide performance-standards sheet carries residential use for 2020 through 2025 and unaccounted-for water for 2019 through 2024. The two series do not end in the same year, so a page comparing a system’s latest figures is comparing two different years unless it says otherwise.
The department’s review sheet covers a subset of the systems on the performance-standards sheet: 93 systems for one reporting year against 281. A system absent from the review sheet has no review published for that year, which is not the same as having been reviewed and found correct.