Water Quality Rules & Regulations
Local
The Northwest Colorado Council of Governments’ Water Quality Protection Standards are outlined in the Blue River Water Quality Management Plan here.
State
The Colorado Water Quality Control Act is Colorado’s version of the Clean Water Act, and it is the source of Colorado’s state laws pertaining to water quality. It was adopted by the Colorado General Assembly in order “[t]o protect, maintain, and improve where necessary and reasonable, water quality for public water supplies, for protection and propagation of wildlife and aquatic life, for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and recreational uses.”
View the complete text of the Colorado Water Quality Control Act here.
Federal
The Clean Water Act passed in 1972 is the basis for water quality management for all states. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency in charge of assuring compliance with the Act. However, in Colorado implementation of this Act has been delegated to the Water Quality Control Commission of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The Colorado Water Quality Control Division is the state agency in charge of regulating water quality under the Colorado Water Quality Control Act.
View a one-page selection of particularly relevant parts of the Clean Water Act here.
View the EPA’s organized Introduction to the Clean Water Act and access the full text from here.
The 208 Plan/Federal Water Quality Regulations
The Area Wide Water Quality Management Plan (The 208 Plan) stems from the Federal Clean Water Act, Section 208. It is a planning effort similar to a land use Master Plan. It provides background assessment of water quality, establishes desired conditions, outlines policy goals to achieve those conditions, and identifies agencies responsible for implementing the Plan.
In the Blue River Watershed, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) has been the designated regional water quality management agency since 1976. In that capacity, NWCCOG’s Watershed Services completes and updates a water quality management plan for the NWCCOG region, in compliance with Section 208 of the Clean Water Act. The Watershed Service program also reviews development applications to determine consistency and compliance with the 208 Plan.
More detailed information can be found in the NWCCOG 208 Plan. Some of these issues may have changed since the Plan was last updated in 2002. For example, it identified the French Creek Drainage from the Wellington Oro Mine as a major source of contaminants. However, a treatment plan will address this problem in 2008.
For more about the 208 Plan, including updates, go here.
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For additional resources, please visit the Resources section of our website.