Englewood officials say water system now in regulatory compliance after multi-year overhaul

Englewood officials told the City Council on Feb. 3 that the city’s water and sewer utilities are now meeting regulatory requirements after several years of work to fix past compliance failures.

The presentation by Director Peter Van Ryan and a subsequent state overview from Nicole Rowan of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) summarized infrastructure upgrades, staffing and process changes that officials say resolved multiple monitoring and reporting gaps that led to public notices and a 2021 boil-water order.

The overview matters because the water system serves more than the city’s resident population: officials said the system’s service population exceeds 50,000 when counting daytime and commuter populations, which triggers additional regulatory obligations. “We’re in compliance with all of our regulatory requirements,” Director Peter Van Ryan told council during the presentation.

The city described several specific fixes and ongoing efforts that changed its compliance profile. Among them: replacing house-based sampling with dedicated sample stations at meter points to avoid monitoring errors traced to private plumbing; hiring an environmental compliance team; formalizing a compliance dashboard and records system to replace paper files; completing required “raw” (Record of Approved Water Works) and disinfection…