El Paso County Water Report

El Paso County's drinking water earned a C grade, scoring 51.3 out of 100. Over the past five years, EPA SDWIS records 107 health-based violations — a pattern that public water utilities are required to disclose and correct.

Under the Clean Water Act §303(d), EPA ATTAINS tracks whether waterways meet quality standards for drinking, recreation, and aquatic life (reporting cycle: 2022). A substantial 36.3% of assessed waterways are impaired (105 of 289 water bodies) across El Paso County's watersheds. The leading impairment causes are escherichia coli (e. coli) and arsenic. Impairment does not mean tap water is unsafe — it measures ambient waterway conditions upstream of treatment, not finished drinking water.

USGS NWIS gauge data (as of 2026-05-14T13:00:00.000-06:00) puts FOUNTAIN CREEK at 77.3 cfs — well below its long-term average at 59% of mean — low-flow conditions worth noting for water-dependent ecosystems. Streamflow is a leading indicator of drought stress, sediment load, and dilution capacity: low flows concentrate pollutants and warm water temperatures, stressing aquatic life and, in surface-water-dependent systems, the source water quality for treatment plants.

EPA's Water Quality Portal (WQP) aggregates monitoring data from federal, state, and tribal agencies. El Paso County has extensive coverage with 210 active monitoring sites with 119,383 recent measurements on record. Predominant monitoring categories include physical and nutrient. More monitoring sites generally indicate greater scientific attention to local water conditions — and provide the baseline data that regulators use to set future impairment listings.