Utilities, CDPHE settle over 11.9 million-gallon treatment plant spill

Colorado Springs Utilities reached a compliance order this summer with the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment to settle penalties for a pair of improper discharges from water treatment plants.

The compliance order stated that between Feb. 15 and 16, the Las Vegas Street Water Resource Recovery Facility in Colorado Springs had sent 11.9 million gallons of “partially-treated” water into Fountain Creek. According to the report, Utilities blamed the discharge on the failure of a single brass nut.

The July 7 order also identified a similar though much smaller discharge from the J.D. Phillips Water Resource Recovery Facility off Mark Dabling Boulevard in September 2025, which released an additional 582,000 gallons into Monument Creek.

The combined civil penalty Utilities paid for both discharges was $35,000. While regional partners of Utilities were informed about what happened, neither the water discharges nor the order of consent had been previously publicly reported.

Utilities officials said that the water had gone through the first three stages of treatment and was awaiting ultraviolet light disinfection to finalize treatment. Later testing showed that the levels of E. coli bacteria and turbidity in the released water were within the legal limits.

“The two events revealed a vulnerability in our monitoring and notification systems during the disinfection stage of treatment. The existing UV systems have been unmodified since they were received from the manufacturer and installed,” Utilities spokesperson Jennifer Jordan said in a statement Monday.

Alli Schuch, executive director of the Fountain Creek Watershed District, said the district’s board was informed of the “discordance” by Utilities within a day or two of the incident in February.

“Untreated sewage is a whole other category of concern. The fact that it went through all that treatment and they kept the major components within the permit limits is a huge relief, really,” Schuch said.

The level of concern over the spill is very different from the response in August when the Pueblo Wastewater Facility spilled over 4 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Arkansas River. That spill led to a health advisory at the John Martin Reservoir, a dedicated update page on the CDPHE’s website, and multiple rounds of public notifications and water testing from Pueblo and the state department.

Going solely off of volume, the Colorado Springs Utilities discharge was nearly three times larger. However, the Pueblo incident came much earlier along in the treatment process and included raw and untreated sewage.

“The different notification responses to these incidents reflected those different circumstances and risk levels, rather than a different enforcement standard for the two communities,” said Kaitlyn Beekman, spokesperson for the Water Quality division of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

Beekman said the financial penalty for Colorado Springs Utilities was based on the duration of the violation and the actions taken after the fact. Both spills were repaired in less than 24 hours, which was on the low end of the department’s calculation table for penalties. The potential damage for the spill was also reduced by the treatment it had already received.

Jordan said that the utility was taking multiple steps to respond to the spill. At the Las Vegas Street facility, Utilities agreed to update the alarms for unusual flows and have staff check the UV sterilization process more frequently.

Colorado Springs is currently celebrating Creek Week, an annual partnership with the Fountain Creek Watershed District to promote cleanup efforts and reclamation projects for the waterway. The watershed district’s website lists more than 40 public cleanup events taking place through Oct. 4.

Schuch said that willows and other native plants along the creek may have further reduced the impact of the discharge by absorbing some of the nutrients.

“We always want to learn from incidents like this. I feel like the communication was strong with our partners and they see us as a trusted partner in protecting the health of the creek,” Schuch said.