← All Colorado water providers

Ute Water Conservancy District

Ute Water Conservancy District is the public water system serving 92,580 people in Mesa County, from surface water. It buys water from Clifton Water District and City of Grand Junction and 1 other systems. It also sells water wholesale to 5 systems.
Community system · EPA id CO0139791 · filed with EPA as “UTE WCD”

Serves Clifton, Fruitvale, Loma, Orchard Mesa, Fruita, Redlands, Grand Junction, Palisade.

People served
92,580
Service connections
40,516
Primary source
Surface water
Owner
Local government
Counties served
Mesa
Water district

Its service area also reaches Lower Gunnison River (2.0%).

Boundary traced from Ute Conservancy District. About 555 km².

Where the water comes from

FacilityKindWater
PURCHASED FROM CLIFTON WD CO0139180Consecutive connection (purchased)Surface water · from CLIFTON WD
PURCHASED FROM GRAND JUNCTION CO0139321Consecutive connection (purchased)Surface water · from GRAND JUNCTION CITY OF
PURCHASED FROM PALISADE CO0139600Consecutive connection (purchased)Surface water · from PALISADE TOWN OF
COLORADO RIVERIntakeSurface water
JERRY CREEK RES NO 1IntakeSurface water
JERRY CREEK RES NO 2IntakeSurface water
MESA CREEK DIVERSIONIntakeSurface water
COON CREEK DIVERSIONIntakeSurface water
MOLINA POWER PLANT TAILIntakeSurface water
PLATEAU CREEK DIVERSIONIntakeSurface 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

15 structures on DWR's record 15 match an EPA intake by name. A match says who DWR lists, not who owns the water: a ditch company can own the headgate while the system owns shares, and a consultant can be the contact. The dossier holds the decree.

StructureTypeSourceDistrictMatched on
COON CREEK DITCH 7200581 1 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
COON CREEK PIPELINE 7201339 7 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
COON CREEK RES NO 1 7203883 3 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
COON CREEK RES NO 2 7203884 3 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
COON CREEK RES NO 3 7203885 3 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
COON CREEK RES NO 4 7203886 3 COON CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: COON CREEK DIVERSION
JERRY CREEK RES NO 1 7203961 3 PLATEAU CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: JERRY CREEK RES NO 1
JERRY CREEK RES NO 2 7203962 3 PLATEAU CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: JERRY CREEK RES NO 1
MESA CREEK DITCH 7200784 1 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK PIPELINE 7201532 7 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK RES NO 1 7203871 3 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK RES NO 2 7203872 3 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK RES NO 3 7203873 3 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK RES NO 4 7203874 3 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION
MESA CREEK RES NO 5 7203875 3 MESA CREEK Lower Colorado River intake name: MESA CREEK DIVERSION

Compliance record

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

No open violation and no health-based violation on EPA's federal record for this system at the last monthly fetch. That is a record of reported compliance, not a test result: SDWIS carries violations, not routine sample values.

EPA's own summary: violations in 1 of the last 12 quarters. In violation for, in EPA's words: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule.

No health-based or open violation on the federal record for this system.

What the regulator did about it

5 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
2023-08-01 St Compliance achieved state
2023-07-13 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2023-07-13 St Public Notif requested state
2023-07-13 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2023-07-13 St Public Notif requested state

Lead and copper

The latest 90th-percentile lead result is 0.0014 mg/L (sampling period ending 2025-12-31) against an action level of 0.015 mg/L, below it. 9 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, 2023-01-23 to 2023-10-04. 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 Grand Junction, Colorado?

Ute Water Conservancy District is the public water system serving 92,580 people in Mesa County, from surface water. Its EPA public water system id is CO0139791.

Where does Ute Water Conservancy District get its water?

Ute Water Conservancy District reports surface water as its primary source. EPA lists its source facilities as PURCHASED FROM CLIFTON WD CO0139180, PURCHASED FROM GRAND JUNCTION CO0139321, PURCHASED FROM PALISADE CO0139600, COLORADO RIVER.

Does Ute Water Conservancy District have any drinking water violations?

EPA's compliance record shows no open health-based violations for Ute Water Conservancy District 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 Mesa 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 →