• Assessment Phase

Colorado Source Water
Assessment and Protection

Colorado Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) is a new program designed to provide you, the public consumer, information about your drinking water, as well as provide you and your community a way to get involved in protecting the quality of your drinking water. The program encourages community-based protection and preventive management strategies to ensure that all public drinking water resources are kept safe from future contamination.

Background
The 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments directed that each state develop a SWAP Program. Each state developed a SWAP program plan outlining how the state will conduct an assessment of all its public water supplies. Because SWAP is a community-based program, involving the public in development and implementation is a very high priority. Among other things, the state of Colorado has enlisted the aid of three citizen teams to help design the SWAP Program, and has held many public meetings to provide opportunities for public comment.

Assessment Report Update
The Water Quality Control Division (Division) completed the initial source water assessment reports for over 1700 public water systems in November 2004. The reports were sent to all the evaluated public water systems for their review and comments. The Division received feedback and corrections from several water systems throughout the state, and is in the process of incorporating the appropriate revisions. Approximately 23 public water system's reports remain in the revision process and their reports are not currently accessible on the website. If your public water system's report is being revised, the water system name will appear under the assessment report heading but the link will not be active, and the associated report can not be viewed. 

SWAP Project News
The SWAP project is transitioning from the assessment phase to the protection planning phase. The Division is conducting regional source water protection planning throughout the state. The meetings are focused on educating public water systems, community members and stakeholders on the protection planning process and technical & financial resources available through the SWAP program. If you are interested in hosting or attending a protection planning meeting please contact the SWAP coordinator at (303) 692-3592.
Several public water systems throughout the state are already conducting protection planning activities with technical assistance from the Division and the Colorado Rural Water Association. In addition to technical assistance, the Division will provide grant funding to support the protection planning phase (see Protection Planning Grant Guidance). Click on the following link to read more about potential grant funding opportunities.

Protection Planning Grant Announcement

For more information contact:

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