Water Utility Programs

Water Quality

• Backflow Prevention
• Drinking Water Quality
• Industrial Pretreatment for
• Stormwater Quality
  • Keep It Clean Partnership

 Drinking Water Quality
The City of Boulder Drinking Water Quality Program performs more than 14,000 drinking water quality tests annually.  The water testing ensures that the water delivered to your tap meets the standards set by our community, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Drinking Water Information

•   Drinking Water Quality Report 2012
•  Updated Drinking Water Quality Summary (Table)
• Drinking Water Quality Regulations
• Frequently Asked Questions About Boulder's Drinking Water

Drinking Water Quality Regulations

Facts About Boulder’s Drinking Water
Drinking Water Quality Regulations

Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, signed into law in 1986, empower the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine and set standards for potential contaminants to drinking water.  The EPA requires local agencies to enforce these standards in their jurisdictions. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is the regulating agency for Colorado. 

Potable water:

• Defined by the EPA and CDPHE as being water that meets regulatory standards
• To maintain at the highest quality, the City closely monitors its water at the sources, in the treatment plants and throughout the City in the water distribution system
• Currently, there are 83 chemical or biological constituents that must be monitored

Chemical constituents are subdivided according to chemical characteristics. The classifications monitored are:

• Inorganic: chlorine, pH, alkalinity, hardness, fluoride, nitrate/nitrite, sulfate, specific conductance, solids, and metals
• Organic: trihalomethanes, volatile organic compounds, and pesticides
• Radionuclides: gross alpha and beta emitters, radon, and uranium

Biological constituents are also monitored on a regular basis. Monitoring includes:

• Routine testing for the presence of coliform bacteria as indicator species and turbidity as a measure of particulate matter.
• The absence of coliforms as a bacterial indicator means that most other known bacterial pathogens have also been removed or inactivated by disinfection.
• Low turbidity indicates a lesser likelihood of the presence of pathogens that are large enough to appear as particulates.
• The combined information from this testing provides a good measure of water potability in respect to biological pathogens.

The City of Boulder also conducts supplemental testing for Giardia and Cryptosporidium in addition to basic regulatory requirements to monitor the quality of the drinking water supply.

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Last Updated on Friday, 01 March 2013 12:24