El Paso County, Colorado: drinking water report. El Paso County sits at the base of Pikes Peak and includes Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest…
El Paso County sits at the base of Pikes Peak and includes Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city. About 730,000 people live here, drawing water from a mix of mountain reservoirs, transmountain diversions, and groundwater from the Denver Basin aquifer system. Colorado Springs Utilities manages the largest share, but dozens of smaller districts serve outlying communities. The military presence is significant – Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, and the Air Force Academy all operate within or adjacent to the county.
That concentration of military installations makes El Paso County a PFAS hotspot. The Department of Defense has confirmed PFAS contamination at Peterson SFB and the Air Force Academy from historical use of AFFF firefighting foam. According to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment data, monitoring wells near Peterson have shown PFOS concentrations exceeding 70 ppt – well above the EPA's MCL of 4 ppt.
The Widefield Aquifer, which supplies several communities south of Colorado Springs, has been particularly affected. The Security and Widefield water districts spent years under PFAS advisories, and the Fountain Valley community has dealt with contaminated wells since 2016. A 2024 CDPHE report documented that six public water systems in the county had PFAS detections requiring treatment or blending.
Your risk in El Paso County depends heavily on geography. Residents near Peterson SFB or in the Fountain Valley corridor face different exposure levels than those drawing from mountain reservoir water on the west side of the county.
Check your water to see which contaminants show up at your address. If you are in one of the affected districts, a reverse osmosis system provides the broadest household protection against PFAS. Our water filter guide compares systems by certified removal rates. Get your detailed report for historical data, and see our Colorado page for statewide context.
Drinking water is one exposure route. These federal datasets also cover El Paso County, CO.
The EPA places El Paso County, CO in Zone 1 - the EPA's highest-risk category, where the predicted average indoor radon level is above 4 pCi/L. Zone maps predict an area's radon potential from geology and existing indoor readings; they say nothing about a specific house. Testing is the only way to know your own level.
37% of homes in El Paso County, CO were built before 1980, and 6% before 1950. Residential lead paint was banned in 1978, so housing age is the strongest available proxy for lead-paint exposure. This describes the county's housing stock, not any one home.
Modelled annual fine-particle pollution (PM2.5) in El Paso County, CO averages 4.8 µg/m³, within the EPA's annual standard of 9 µg/m³. These are CDC modelled county estimates rather than readings from a specific monitor.
How radon zones work · Air quality by county · Lead exposure guide
Across 59 public water systems serving El Paso County, CO with EPA lead testing on record, 4 (6.8%) reported a 90th-percentile lead result above the EPA's 15 ppb action level, and the median is 3.5 ppb. 31 water systems serving El Paso County, CO carry a health-based EPA Safe Drinking Water Act violation.
| Most-cited violation type | Systems affected |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule | 13 |
| Ground Water Rule | 7 |
| Lead and Copper Rule | 6 |
| Combined Radium (226 + 228) | 5 |
| Lead and Copper Rule Revisions | 4 |
Source: EPA Lead and Copper Rule 90th-percentile tap sampling and EPA SDWIS Safe Drinking Water Act enforcement records, aggregated from the public water systems serving this county. Figures are counts of water systems, not a test of any individual home or tap.