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.

WSSC Water was originally created to study the drainage situation in Montgomery and Prince George's counties and to recommend the best possible sewage system.

The report recommended establishing a permanent Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission as a bi-county agency for water and sewage.

[10] Duckett visited Elizabeth, New Jersey, which had financed its sewage plan by having a front-foot benefit charge and a land tax, with the house connections installed at the cost of each property owner.

WSSC Water requested a similar arrangement in Maryland, and the county governments certified the levy in March 1919, using the rate of $0.015 per $100 of assessed property.

To provide additional capacity, the commission bought a used water filtration plant from Culpeper, Virginia, and installed the system along the Northwest Branch near Burnt Mills.

Later, a pipeline was built to bring water from the Patuxent River at Mink Hollow to the filtration plant in Burnt Mills.

[11] WSSC Water connected its trunk sewers near Washington, DC into the Blue Plains system beginning in the 1930s, as the treatment plant began operation.