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City of Fort Collins

The City of Fort Collins is the public water system serving 179,901 people in Larimer County, from surface water. It buys water from Fort Collins Loveland Water District. It also sells water wholesale to 12 systems.
Community system · EPA id CO0135291 · filed with EPA as “FT COLLINS CITY OF”

Serves Fort Collins, Laporte.

People served
179,901
Service connections
35,866
Primary source
Surface water
Owner
Local government
Counties served
Larimer
Water district

Boundary traced. About 93 km².

Where the water comes from

FacilityKindWater
PLEASANT VALLEY INTAKEIntakeSurface water
PURCHASED FROM CO0135292Consecutive connection (purchased)Surface water · from FT COLLINS LOVELAND WD
POUDRE RIVER INTAKEIntakeSurface water
HORSETOOTH RESERVOIR INTAKEIntakeSurface water

These are EPA's facility records, not DWR structures. Which decreed rights sit behind an intake is the next phase; nothing here is inferred.

DWR structures that name this system

Source Probable join · fetched 2026-09-09 · matched on DWR's recorded contact or an EPA intake name; verify on the dossier

No DWR structure on file records this system as its contact, and none of its EPA intakes matches a structure name in its districts. DWR records a contact on only a fraction of structures, and only for districts fetched from its live service, so this is absence of a record, not evidence of no rights.

Compliance record

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-09-09 · verify at EPA ECHO ↗

Nothing open today, but 1 health-based violation appears on the federal record historically. The history is below.

EPA's own summary: violations in 3 of the last 12 quarters. In violation for, in EPA's words: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 1008=Chlorine dioxide. Currently: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 1008=Chlorine dioxide.

What happened

All 1 violation record on file, grouped into the 1 distinct thing EPA's codes describe. Dates are the compliance period the violation is filed against.

Single Turbidity Exceed (Enhanced SWTR) — Ieswtr health-based
A required treatment step was not carried out or not proved. 1 record, 2017-12-01. Highest measured: 2.5 NTU.
Rule: Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule.
Every violation record, as filed (1 of 1)
Compliance periodWhatAboutKindStatusMeasured
2017-12-01 – 2017-12-31 Single Turbidity Exceed (Enhanced SWTR) Ieswtr health-based returned to compliance (2018-02-14) 2.5 NTU

What the regulator did about it

23 enforcement actions on this system's federal record. In Colorado the state is the primacy agency, so most actions are the state's; EPA acts directly on tribal systems and when it steps in.

DateActionBy
2026-05-12 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2026-05-12 St Public Notif requested state
2026-05-11 St Compliance achieved state
2026-04-30 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2026-04-30 St Public Notif requested state
2026-04-12 St Compliance achieved state
2024-08-22 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2024-08-22 St Public Notif requested state
2024-08-12 St Compliance achieved state
2021-09-10 St Compliance achieved state
2021-07-29 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2021-07-29 St Public Notif requested state
2018-02-14 St Compliance achieved state
2018-01-12 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2018-01-12 St Public Notif requested state
2018-01-12 St Public Notif received state
2018-01-08 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2018-01-08 St Public Notif requested state
2017-06-30 St Compliance achieved state
2017-06-14 St Violation/Reminder Notice state

20 most recent of 23; the rest are on the ECHO report.

Lead and copper

The latest 90th-percentile lead result is 0.0028 mg/L (sampling period ending 2025-12-31) against an action level of 0.015 mg/L, below it. 7 results on file.

The action level is not a health limit: it is the level at which the rule requires a system to act (corrosion control, public education, and in some cases replacing lead service lines). Lead mostly enters water from household plumbing, so a system-wide percentile does not tell you what comes out of one tap.

Violation, enforcement and lead/copper records are EPA SDWIS federal reporting, fetched monthly; the summary is EPA ECHO. Code names come from EPA's own REF_CODE_VALUE table. SDWIS carries violations, not routine sample results — nitrate, disinfection by-product and PFAS values are not in it, and a clean record here means nothing was reported as a violation, not that nothing was ever detected. For what was measured, ask the system for its Consumer Confidence Report.

PFAS and lithium: EPA's UCMR 5 monitoring, 2023–2025

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-09-09 · verify at EPA UCMR occurrence data ↗

4 samples, 120 results, 2025-01-28 to 2025-10-08. No PFAS was detected at the reporting limits; lithium was not detected.

ContaminantResultsDetectedHighest, µg/LReporting limit
HFPO-DA 4 0 < 0.005 0.005
PFHxS 4 0 < 0.003 0.003
PFNA 4 0 < 0.004 0.004
PFOA 4 0 < 0.004 0.004
PFOS 4 0 < 0.004 0.004
lithium 4 0 < 9.0 9.0

Rows shown: every detected contaminant plus the regulated PFAS and lithium; the rest were below their reporting limits. These are UCMR monitoring samples, not compliance samples. EPA's April 2024 rule set 4.0 ng/L (0.004 µg/L) for PFOA and PFOS, the same as UCMR 5's reporting limit, so any detection of either is at or above it; the rule's compliance date and its other limits have been under revision since 2025 and are not applied here. State PFAS sampling is on CDPHE's pages ↗.

Common questions

Who provides drinking water in Fort Collins, Colorado?

The City of Fort Collins is the public water system serving 179,901 people in Larimer County, from surface water. Its EPA public water system id is CO0135291.

Where does the City of Fort Collins get its water?

The City of Fort Collins reports surface water as its primary source. EPA lists its source facilities as PLEASANT VALLEY INTAKE, PURCHASED FROM CO0135292, POUDRE RIVER INTAKE, HORSETOOTH RESERVOIR INTAKE.

Does the City of Fort Collins have any drinking water violations?

EPA's compliance record shows no open health-based violations for the City of Fort Collins at the last monthly fetch. Older and non-health-based entries, if any, are listed on this page.

Places this system serves

Census places its EPA service-area boundary substantially covers. Each page lists every system serving that place.

Every provider in Larimer County.

The record

EPA SDWIS federal reporting as of 2026-09-08; the compliance record above is EPA's own, fetched monthly, and the ECHO report carries the rest. Report a problem →