Town of Ophir☆

Where the water comes from

Facility	Kind	Water
WATERFALL CREEK SURFACE INTAKE	Intake	Surface water
LOWER SPRING	Spring	Groundwater under the influence of surface water
UPPER SPRING	Spring	Groundwater 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 2026-10-06 · 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 2026-10-07 · verify at EPA ECHO ↗

EPA's own summary: violations in 12 of the last 12 quarters, significant non-compliance in 3. In violation for, in EPA's words: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0999=Chlorine; 2456=Total Haloacetic Acids (HAA5); 2950=TTHM; 3014=E. COLI; 5200=LEAD AND COPPER RULE REVISIONS; 8000=Revised Total Coliform Rule. Currently: 0200=Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0300=Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule; 0999=Chlorine; 5200=LEAD AND COPPER RULE REVISIONS; 8000=Revised Total Coliform Rule.

What happened

All 11 violation records on file, grouped into the 3 distinct things EPA's codes describe. Dates are the compliance period the violation is filed against.

Every violation record, as filed (11 of 11)

Compliance period	What	About	Kind	Status	Measured
2025-07-02	code 4H		monitoring and reporting	open
2024-05-01 – 2024-05-31	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2024-04-01 – 2024-04-30	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2024-03-01 – 2024-03-31	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2024-02-10	Failure To Address Deficiency	Groundwater Rule	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-08-26)
2024-02-01 – 2024-02-29	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2024-01-01 – 2024-01-31	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2023-12-01 – 2023-12-31	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2023-11-01 – 2023-11-30	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2023-10-01 – 2023-10-31	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)
2023-09-01 – 2023-09-30	Treatment Technique (SWTR and GWR)	SWTR	health-based	returned to compliance (2024-05-14)

What the regulator did about it

163 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.

20 most recent of 163; the rest are on the ECHO report.

Lead and copper

The latest 90th-percentile lead result is 0.0015 mg/L (sampling period ending 2023-12-31) 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 2026-10-09 · 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).

What changed recently

Differences EPA's monthly federal record showed against the month before. A date in brackets is EPA's own; otherwise it is when this site first saw the change.

• Enforcement action: St Violation/Reminder Notice (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Public Notif requested (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Violation/Reminder Notice (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Public Notif requested (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Violation/Reminder Notice (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Public Notif requested (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Violation/Reminder Notice (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Public Notif requested (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Violation/Reminder Notice (2026-05-19)
• Enforcement action: St Public Notif requested (2026-05-19)

Save this system to My Water and these changes appear there each time you visit.

Common questions

Who provides drinking water in Ophir, Colorado?

The Town of Ophir is the public water system serving 193 people in San Miguel County, from surface water. Its EPA public water system id is CO0157600.

Where does the Town of Ophir get its water?

The Town of Ophir reports surface water as its primary source. EPA lists its source facilities as WATERFALL CREEK SURFACE INTAKE, LOWER SPRING, UPPER SPRING.

Does the Town of Ophir have any drinking water violations?

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