Water Treatment

The City and County of Broomfield’s Water Treatment Facility is a state-of-the-art, 20 million gallon-per-day conventional Water Treatment Facility. The total water production for 2012 was 3,888,641,000 gallons. Of that total, the City and County of Broomfield's facility produced 2,509,077,000 gallons. Denver Water produced 1,380,124,000 gallons. The peak production day was 23,452,000 gallons on June 25, 2012. The average use for a typical family home in the United States is 163,000 gallons of water per year.

  1. water droppH Increases in Broomfield’s Water

    Staring in March, 2020 increases will be made to the pH of Broomfield’s drinking water. This change will enhance Broomfield’s water by reducing corrosivity and the increased pH will help protect customers from the effects of lead that may be present in older household plumbing. Broomfield’s extensive treatment and monitoring programs ensure that the drinking water we deliver is safe. Broomfield’s water will remain safe during these changes.

    How Will This Impact My Water? Customers that use water for pH-sensitive activities, such as fish tanks, as a part of the brewing process, or as a component of other machinery or equipment sensitive to pH, will notice an increase in pH when testing the water. Appropriate measures should be taken to adjust for these changes.
    Why is This Change Happening? Broomfield receives approximately 40% of its total treated water from Denver Water on an annual basis. In early March 2020, Denver Water will be increasing the pH level of the water it delivers to customers as part of Denver Waters’ lead reduction program. This change will increase the pH of water leaving Denver Water treatment plants from 7.8 to 8.8. The Denver Water Lead Reduction Program was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) in December 2019. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires that Broomfield re-evaluate its corrosion control treatment due to the change from Denver Water. In July 2019, Broomfield hired Corona Environmental Consulting to study the water distribution system in anticipation of the Denver Water changes. Corona Environmental concluded that the best strategy for Broomfield, with our mixed distribution system, is to match the treatment objectives of Denver. Broomfield does not have a problem with lead in the drinking water and the changes are intended to provide consistency across the entire system.
    When Will The Changes Take Place?  Broomfield receives approximately 40% of its total treated water from Denver Water on an annual basis. In early March 2020, Denver Water will be increasing the pH level of the water it delivers to customers as part of Denver Waters’ lead reduction program. This change will increase the pH of water leaving Denver Water treatment plants from 7.8 to 8.8. The change in water treated at the Broomfield Water Treatment plant (approximately 60% of Broomfield’s annual total treated water) will be completed in two phases. In March 2020, the pH at Broomfield’s Water Treatment Plant will be increased from 7.8 to 8.2. The pH will be increased from 8.2 to 8.8 by October 2020 to match the pH levels of the Denver Water supply. The phased implementation is necessary to facilitate improvements in the chemical feed systems at Broomfield’s Water Treatment Plant.
    Who Can I Contact with Questions?If you need more specific information regarding this change, please call our water treatment facility at 303.464,5600 or email publicworks@broomfield.org.
Sedimentation Basins

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.

Filters
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". 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), and 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
From the clearwell, the water is transmitted through pipelines to storage tanks for distribution to Broomfield.


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 the 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 Broomfield's water is constantly being monitored from the source to the consumer’s tap to ensure the highest quality is maintained. See the Current Annual Water Quality Report for more information.

For more information, please contact us at 303.464.5600 or email.