← All Colorado water providers

City of Ouray

The City of Ouray is the public water system serving 1,460 people in Ouray County, from groundwater under the influence of surface water. EPA modelled this service area rather than tracing it from a utility map, so treat the edge as approximate.
Community system · EPA id CO0146588 · filed with EPA as “OURAY CITY OF”

Serves Ouray.

People served
1,460
Service connections
1,004
Primary source
Groundwater under the influence of surface water
Owner
Local government
Counties served
Ouray
Water district

Modelled boundary. EPA estimated this service area (Random Forest) rather than tracing a utility-supplied map; treat the edge as approximate. About 4 km².

Where the water comes from

FacilityKindWater
SPRING NO 1 WEEHAWKENWellGroundwater under the influence of surface 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 2 health-based violations appear on the federal record historically. The history is below.

EPA's own summary: violations in 10 of the last 12 quarters. In violation for, in EPA's words: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0999=Chlorine; 2378=1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene; 2380=cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene; 2955=Xylenes, Total; 2964=DICHLOROMETHANE; 2968=o-Dichlorobenzene; 2969=p-Dichlorobenzene; 2976=Vinyl chloride; 2977=1,1-Dichloroethylene; 2979=trans-1,2-Dichloroethylene; 2980=1,2-Dichloroethane; 2981=1,1,1-Trichloroethane; 2982=Carbon tetrachloride; 2983=1,2-Dichloropropane; 2984=Trichloroethylene; 2985=1,1,2-Trichloroethane; 2987=Tetrachloroethylene; 2989=CHLOROBENZENE; 2990=Benzene; 2991=Toluene; 2992=Ethylbenzene; 2996=Styrene; 7500=Public Notice. Currently: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 7500=Public Notice.

What happened

All 2 violation records on file, grouped into the 2 distinct things EPA's codes describe. Dates are the compliance period the violation is filed against.

Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) — SWTR health-based
A required treatment step was not carried out or not proved. 1 record, 2026-04-01.
Rule: Surface Water Treatment Rule -- filtration and disinfection.
Failure to Filter (SWTR) — SWTR health-based
A required treatment step was not carried out or not proved. 1 record, 2022-10-02.
Rule: Surface Water Treatment Rule -- filtration and disinfection.
Every violation record, as filed (2 of 2)
Compliance periodWhatAboutKindStatusMeasured
2026-04-01 – 2026-04-30 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based known, archived
2022-10-02 Failure to Filter (SWTR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2024-09-23)

What the regulator did about it

60 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
2026-05-07 St Compliance achieved state
2026-04-29 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2026-04-29 St Public Notif requested state
2026-04-16 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2026-04-16 St Public Notif requested state
2026-04-16 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2026-04-16 St Public Notif requested state
2026-03-02 St Compliance achieved state
2026-02-27 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2025-08-20 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2025-08-20 St Public Notif requested state
2025-07-09 St Compliance achieved state
2025-02-27 St Compliance achieved
System sampled routine compliance in 2025 lmf 2/28/2025
state
2025-01-14 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2025-01-14 St Public Notif requested state
2024-09-23 St Compliance achieved state
2024-08-14 St Compliance achieved
System submitted July MOR on 8/14/2024 lmf 11/5/2024
state
2024-08-13 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2024-08-13 St Public Notif requested state
2023-09-22 St Violation/Reminder Notice state

20 most recent of 60; the rest are on the ECHO report.

Lead and copper

The latest 90th-percentile lead result is 0.0013 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 ↗

EPA did not sample this system under UCMR 5 (the rule covered every system serving more than 3,300 people and a drawn sample of smaller ones).

Common questions

Who provides drinking water in Ouray, Colorado?

The City of Ouray is the public water system serving 1,460 people in Ouray County, from groundwater under the influence of surface water. Its EPA public water system id is CO0146588.

Where does the City of Ouray get its water?

The City of Ouray reports groundwater under the influence of surface water as its primary source. EPA lists its source facilities as SPRING NO 1 WEEHAWKEN.

Does the City of Ouray have any drinking water violations?

EPA's compliance record shows no open health-based violations for the City of Ouray 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 Ouray 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 →