Source Water Assessment
for Cache la Poudre Watershed

EPA National Pilot

The upper Cache la Poudre River is one important source of drinking water for communities located along the North Front Range of Colorado. The quality of the water resources of this watershed need to be protected. The National Pilot Source Water Assessment for Cache la Poudre River is a Project to develop a ‘source water assessment’ for the portion of the Cache la Poudre watershed supplying water to the City of Fort Collins (Colorado) public water system.

See our study area relative to Colorado. We created an aerial view of the assessment area from the south east. It is also available in VRML 2.0 format.

The Project is a national pilot sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the new federal Source Water Assessment Program and the Colorado Source Water Assessment and Protection Program, administered by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The intent of the source water assessment and protection approach is prevention -- to protect the quality of the source of drinking water supplies from contamination.

The Environmental Policy Analysis and Management Program (EPAM), Center for Community Development and Design (CCDD), University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is conducting the source water assessment in cooperation with City of Fort Collins Utilities.

A source water assessment is a three step process:

1. Delineation of Source Water Assessement Area -- identifying the boundaries of the geographic area that will be assessed.
2. Contaminant Source Inventory -- identifying existing and possible future sources of contamination.
3. Susceptibility Analysis -- analyzing the possible threat contaminants identified in the inventory pose to the drinking water source.

The federal Source Water Assessment Program requires states to involve the public extensively as they develop and carry out their programs. Colorado’s Source Water Assessment and Protection Program strongly encourages public water systems and others undertaking source water assessment and protection at the watershed or community levels to involve stakeholders and the public in developing and carrying out their programs.

What follows is a description of how the Project accomplished each of the three technical steps and the results of each. Each section provides maps and other supporting material. The supporting material contains more information about lessons the Project team learned, detailed technical information, and links to data sources that, hopefully, will be useful to others developing a source water assessment for their sources of drinking water. EPAM is addressing stakeholder participation issues in a separate, but related effort -- Project to Assess and Involve Stakeholders in Protecting Cache la Poudre Source Waters.

Proceed to Step 1: Delineation...