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Little Elk Creek

Little Elk Creek is the public water system serving 150 people in Pitkin 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 CO0149476 · filed with EPA as “LITTLE ELK CREEK”
People served
150
Service connections
78
Primary source
Groundwater under the influence of surface water
Owner
Private
Counties served
Pitkin
Water district

Modelled boundary. EPA estimated this service area (Random Forest) rather than tracing a utility-supplied map; treat the edge as approximate. About 3 km².

Where the water comes from

FacilityKindWater
WELL NO 1WellGroundwater under the influence of surface water
WELL NO 2WellGroundwater under the influence of surface water
WELL NO 3WellGroundwater 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 16 health-based violations appear on the federal record historically. The history is below.

EPA's own summary: violations in 7 of the last 12 quarters, significant non-compliance in 1. In violation for, in EPA's words: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 2456=Total Haloacetic Acids (HAA5); 5000=Lead and Copper Rule.

What happened

All 16 violation records on file, grouped into the 2 distinct things EPA's codes describe. Dates are the compliance period the violation is filed against.

Monthly Turbidity Exceed (Enhanced SWTR) — Ieswtr health-based
A required treatment step was not carried out or not proved. 1 record, 2025-10-01.
Rule: Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule.
Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) — SWTR health-based
A required treatment step was not carried out or not proved. 15 records, 2015-12-01 to 2017-02-01.
Rule: Surface Water Treatment Rule -- filtration and disinfection.
Every violation record, as filed (12 of 16)
Compliance periodWhatAboutKindStatusMeasured
2025-10-01 – 2025-10-31 Monthly Turbidity Exceed (Enhanced SWTR) Ieswtr health-based returned to compliance (2025-12-05)
2017-02-01 – 2017-02-28 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2017-01-01 – 2017-01-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-12-01 – 2016-12-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-11-01 – 2016-11-30 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-10-01 – 2016-10-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-09-01 – 2016-09-30 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-08-01 – 2016-08-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-07-01 – 2016-07-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-06-01 – 2016-06-30 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-05-01 – 2016-05-31 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)
2016-04-01 – 2016-04-30 Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR) SWTR health-based returned to compliance (2017-04-13)

The remaining 4 are on the ECHO report.

What the regulator did about it

55 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
2025-12-05 St Compliance achieved state
2025-11-10 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2025-11-10 St Public Notif requested state
2025-11-10 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2025-11-10 St Public Notif requested state
2024-12-17 St Compliance achieved
System submitted Nov 2024 MOR on 12/17/2024 lmf 1/30/2025
state
2024-12-12 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2024-12-12 St Public Notif requested state
2024-12-12 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2024-12-12 St Public Notif requested state
2024-09-24 St Compliance achieved
System sampled correctly in Aug 2024. Soxing with a 9/24/2024 date lmf 11/5/2024
state
2024-07-11 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2024-07-11 St Public Notif requested state
2024-07-11 St Compliance achieved
Results were submitted on 7/11/2024 and the 90th was calculated lmf 7/11/2024
state
2023-10-20 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2023-10-20 St Public Notif requested state
2023-08-17 St Compliance achieved state
2023-07-28 St Violation/Reminder Notice state
2023-07-28 St Public Notif requested state
2023-07-11 St Compliance achieved
submitted
state

20 most recent of 55; the rest are on the ECHO report.

Lead and copper

The latest 90th-percentile lead result is 0.0 mg/L (sampling period ending 2026-06-30) against an action level of 0.015 mg/L, below it. Copper 1.35 mg/L against 1.3 mg/L, above it. 22 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 Snowmass, Colorado?

Little Elk Creek is the public water system serving 150 people in Pitkin County, from groundwater under the influence of surface water. Its EPA public water system id is CO0149476.

Where does Little Elk Creek get its water?

Little Elk Creek reports groundwater under the influence of surface water as its primary source. EPA lists its source facilities as WELL NO 1, WELL NO 2, WELL NO 3.

Does Little Elk Creek have any drinking water violations?

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

Every provider in Pitkin 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 →