Federal Regulations
In 1974, the United States Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act to help ensure that tap water is safe to drink. Under the provisions of the Act, the water purveyor is held primarily responsible to ensure water quality meets national standards of safe drinking water established through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These provisions include a warranty that the water quality provided by the purveyor is in conformance with EPA standards at the source, and that the water is delivered to the customer without compromising its quality. The EPA is coupling cross-connection and distribution system requirements with revisions to the Total Coliform Rule and is currently preparing a series of Total Coliform papers as a parallel effort to the distribution system white papers.
State Regulations
The Colorado Hazardous Cross-Connection Control Program was developed to implement Article 12 of the Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulations. The regulation states:
"A public water system or consecutive water distribution system of a public water system will have no uncontrolled cross-connections to a pipe, fixture or supply, any of which contain water not meeting provisions of the drinking water regulations."
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Water Quality Control Division (CDPHE, WQCD) asks for compliance from all public water systems to protect public health by developing an effective individual cross-connection control program. The individual program should include protective local ordinances, and must survey and prioritize cross-connections according to degree of hazard, eliminate cross-connections by disconnecting, or control cross-connections with an approved backflow prevention assembly. Backflow prevention assemblies must be tested on a yearly basis by a certified tester and adequate records must be maintained.
"Under Article 12 of the Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulations, The Public Water Supplier has primary responsibility to develop and maintain a program to prevent or control contamination from water sources of lesser quality or other contamination sources from entering into the public water system."
Division of Fire Safety regulation
City Regulations
City Code §12.4.12
Our Cross-Connection Control Program was implemented to ensure compliance with the Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulation, Article 12, and City Code§12.4.12. These regulations require us to control cross-connections through a collaborative effort to inventory, monitor and enforce the proper installation and operation of backflow prevention assemblies.
Colorado Springs Fire Department regulations
Detailed specifications can be found in the Water Service Standards.
