COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado Springs Utilities delivers 68 million gallons of drinking water to customers every day.
Ensuring the quality of the water is a big job.
“The source water that we have is exceptional compared to other areas of the country,” said Colorado Springs Utilities, Walter Quality Laboratory Supervisor, Rick Johnson.
Snowpack equals the water supply in Colorado Springs.
Rocky Mountain water has low contamination.
It still needs treatment before it goes to the homes of utility customers.
We run close to 100,000 analyses a year of 15,000 samples, drinking water samples,” said Johnson, “We have some of the most sophisticated instrumentation in the industry here.”
A team of 30 collects and test samples.
“We have a responsibility to our community,” said Environmental Technician, Taylor Rempelos, “We are customers of our own water, so we want to make sure that the water that we're consuming ourselves is safe and then for everyone else in the community as well.”
One of the most common questions at Colorado Springs Utilities is about the amount of fluoride added to water.
Water techs say it is never added.
Instead, it is naturally occurring and at some treatment plants the water is diluted to lower levels.
On our CSU website, we now have an interactive fluoride map that you can go and look up your address and type it in. It'll tell you how much fluoride is in your area,” said Environmental Technician, Megan Polk.
The work at the laboratory happens so water users can turn on their taps with no concerns.
“We're spending all that time and energy to make sure that you don't have to worry about it,” said Johnson.
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