SOURCE WATER ASSESSMENT FOR CACHE LA POUDRE WATERSHED - DATA RESOURCES

An EPA National Pilot

Fort Collins Utilities
Larimer County
Colorado State University
Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Colorado Geological Survey
Colorado State Oil Inspection Section
Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Census Bureau Tiger/Line
U.S. Geological Survey
ESRI Business Tracker
Other Resources

A notable step in modern source water assessment is data collection. A wide variety of data sources exist that provide spatial GIS information useful in this work. Some reside online and can be freely downloaded via the Internet and others (especially local data) can be requested on CD or FTP (file transfer protocol.) The following is a list of all relevant data located in the course of our study. The original website included links, contact information, and pointed to online metadata where available. (The live links have been removed in the current revision as many have changed and some data has been removed because of events since 9/11/01. Please contact George Weber, Inc. Environmental if you would like assistance in pursuing any of these).

These do not include many potential data sources we examined but were not able to use. In many instances the data available from a particular source is changing continually.

The Fort Collins Water Utilities department provided a wealth of valuable local insight and several data resources. Contact Ben Alexander for more information.

• Source Water Intakes
• Transbasin Diversions
• Improved Natural Watershed
• North / South Cache la Poudre Watershed Boundaries

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Larimer County maintains a wealth of local GIS data we found invaluable in the creation of numerous maps. Contact Dan Kunis to for assistance obtaining any of this data.

• Land Use 1987
• Land Use 1992 by parcel
• ISDS (Septic system) Status (proxy) by parcel
• Zoning for Larimer County
• Agricultural Land Use

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Colorado State University (CSU) hosts the Natural Diversity Information Source that provided useful land ownership coverage.

• Colorado Land Stewardship Mapping - Land Ownership (entire county)

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The Arapahoe & Roosevelt National Forest (ARNF) provided several highly useful data sets for lands which they managed within our assessment area. Contact Dave Gloss, their Hydrologist, for more information about these resources.

• Forest Management Areas
• Forest Transportation Routes

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Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) maintains the Source Water Assessment and Protection website. There you will find the plan this project follows and other relevant information and resources. They also provide several useful GIS resources.

• Major Watersheds
• Continental Divide
• Wellhead Protection Areas (preliminary)

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The Colorado Geological Survey (CGS) collects and maintains several GIS coverages that useful in the assessment of sourcewater. Contact Matt Sares for more information.

• Mine Inventory Areas (environmentally rated)
• Mine Openings (environmentally rated)
• Mine Tailing Piles (environmentally rated)
• Government Land Status
• USGS DRG (Scanned topo line maps)
• Topographic Relief Map

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The State Oil Inspection Section maintains a complete list of aboveground and underground storage tanks located throughout the state. These locations (mostly street address) can be obtained online and geocoded for use with a GIS system. However, many of these addresses were unlocatable due to a variety of factors. Consequently, it is best to first select tanks located within ZIP codes touching the SWAA.

• Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUST)
• Underground Storage Tanks (UST)
• Aboveground Storage Tanks (AST)

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) houses many easy-to-use GIS data that are invaluable in this research. They host both a National GIS Program and A Regional GIS Data Inventory.

• CERCLA
• Federal Land Boundaries
• National Pollution Discharge
• CERCLIS - Superfund NPL Sites
• Treatment, Storage, & Disposal Facilities
• Vegetation
• Wetland Violations (Section 404)

EPA BASINS

Additionally the EPA provides an extensive BASINS program which includes a complete GIS package (ArcView software and data) for studying watersheds and their environmental impacts. Anyone can freely download the package for their watershed and apply a wide variety of analysis tools to it. This is by and far the single most comprehensive source for data useful in these assessments. Note: watershed coverages do not include transbasin diversions which must be obtained seperately.

• USGS WATSTORE Stream Flow Basin
• Characteristics File
• Permit Compliance System
• Industrial Facilities Discharge Sites
• Toxic Release Inventory
• National Priority List Sites
• Hazardous and Solid Waste Sites
• Water Quality Monitoring Stations - STORET
• Bacteria Stations
• National Sediment Inventory Stations
• USGS Gage Stations
• Drinking Water Supply Sites
• Dam Locations
• RF1 - Reach File, V1
• RF3 - Reach File Version 3 Alpha
• Weather Station Sites
• Weather Station Area
• WDM Weather Data Stations
• Cataloging Unit (HUC)
• Accounting Unit Boundaries
• EPA Region Boundaries
• Ecoregions (Level III)
• NAW QA Study Area Unit Boundaries
• Mineral Industry Locations (Mines)
• Water Quality Observation Stations
• 1996 Clean Water Needs Survey
• STATSGO - State Soil
• Managed Area Database
• No Classified Shellfish Area
• Land Cover (called "Land Use")
• Place Names

EPA STORET

The EPA's STORET Program collects detailed water quality data derived from a broad variety of data providers throughout the nation. Extensive histories of water samples can be obtained and associated with the Water Quality Observation Stations (available in BASINS).

• STORET samples (Legacy)

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The Census Bureau maintains and updates a popular set of spatial data for use in conjunction with its population, housing, and other census studies. Base map coverages can be easily extacted from these data which can be obtained online for any given county.

• Linear Hydrology (classified manually referencing Gazetteer)
• Lakes
• Railroads
• Populated Places
• U.S. State Boundaries
• County Boundaries
• Highways

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U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains a variety of GIS data for water resources in addition to general GIS data.

• Agricultural Chemical Use Estimates (by county)
• Herbicaide Use Estiamtes (by county)
• Manure Impact Estimates (by county)
• Nitrogen Fertilyzer Use Estimates (by county)
• USGS Hydrologic Unit (HUC) (Natural Watershed)
• USGS 1 degree Digital Elevation Map (DEM)
• 100k USGS DLG Hydrology

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ESRI, the makers of ArcView and ArcInfo, sell a product called Business Tracker with BusinessMAP PRO. With this software and its packaged data sets, you can extract business locations that are of potential concern in your SWAA. We used this to locate a number of business which were further reviewed with local feedback.

• Businesses by Type

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Additional data can be sought online using a number of GIS data clearinghouses. We've listed some we found useful below.

• Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies - Data Guide
• Colorado FGDC Metadata Search
• Rocky Mountain GIS Cooperative Resource Center & GICC
• Colorado Rockies Regional Cooperative
• Bureau of Transportation Statistics - GIS References
• Earth Science data on the Global Land Information System
• Bureau of Land Management - Geospatial Support Team
• National Biological Information Infrastructure - Metadata

Additionally, several agencies provide online tools that allow uses to quickly draw simple maps for basic research. We've listed some we found useful in the preliminary work.

• EPA's Surf Your Watershed
• Boulder Creek Watershed Online Data Resource (BASIN)
• TIGER Mapping Service

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