Water Treatment Facility 4395 West 144th Avenue
Broomfield, CO 80023 Superintendent: Rich Coufal
303.464.5600
The City and County of Broomfield’s Water Treatment Facility is a state-of-the-art, 20.0
million gallon-per-day conventional Water Treatment Facility. The total water production
for 2010 was 3,302,813,000 gallons. Of that total, the City and County of Broomfield's facility produced
1,806,263,000 gallons. Denver Water produced
1,499,286,000 gallons. The peak production day was
19,043,000 gallons on July 26, 2010. The average use for a typical family home in the United States is 163,000 gallons of
water per year. The average consumption per person, per day is approximately
156 gallons.
What does it take to treat the water?
The process consists of coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, fluoridation, and disinfection. The
influent metering / control vault measures and controls the flow of raw (untreated) water into the treatment process.
The majority of the treatment process components are automatically controlled via computers based on flow metering at this
structure. The rapid mix basins are where chemicals are added and mixed with the water. These chemicals are needed to
remove the extremely small suspended solids from the water. The flocculation basins provide an environment where the
chemicals and the suspended solids interact to accumulate into larger masses called "floc." In the sedimentation
basins, the majority of the "floc" settles out of the water and the supernatant is drawn off and conveyed via
underground piping to the facility’s building for filtration.
The filters consist of an under-drain system, silica gravel, garnet sand, silica sand, and anthracite media. The media
has a total depth of 40 inches. These filters will remove the remaining solids or colloidal material.
The water will then flow into a disinfection tank. The chlorine is added at the beginning of this tank, which has a
serpentine configuration to ensure enough contact time between the water and chlorine for complete disinfection
to take place. The water flows through this tank into the clearwell. The pH corrective chemical (soda ash), the corrosion
inhibitor (sodium silicate), the fluoride additive (sodium silicofluoride) are added at this time. A solution of aqueous
ammonia is also added to convert the free chlorine to combined chlorine as the final disinfectant residual for the
distribution system.
Chemical Room at the Water Treatment Facility
Chemicals used by the City and County of Broomfield Water Treatment Facility:
Aluminum Sulfate – coagulant
Nalco 8102 Polymer – coagulant aid
Powdered Activated Carbon – taste and odor
Sodium Hypochlorite – disinfectant
Sodium Silicate – corrosion inhibitor
Sodium Silicofluoride – fluoridation
Aqua Ammonia – disinfection
Sodium Carbonate (Soda Ash) – pH correction
From the clearwell, the water is transmitted through pipelines to storage tanks for distribution to the Broomfield
residents.
Carbon Road Storage Tanks
The principal law governing drinking water safety in the United States is the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
Enacted initially in 1974, the SDWA authorizes the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to establish comprehensive
national drinking water regulations to ensure drinking water safety.
Drinking water regulations are issued by a regulatory agency under the authority of federal, state, or
local laws. These regulations established by USEPA typically require water utilities to meet specified water quality
standards. Regulations also require that certain monitoring be conducted, that specified treatment be applied, and that
suppliers submit reports to document that the regulations are being met.
The quality of this water is constantly being monitored from the source to the consumer’s tap to ensure the
highest quality is maintained. See the
Water Quality Report(Printable Version) for more information.
The staff at the Water Treatment Facility consists of ten full-time and one part-time positions.
For more information, please contact us at 303.464.5600. top of page