FAQ
Q: If I have no water at my house, who should I call and what will they do?
A: Call 303-526-2025 (District Office) or 303-688-7072 (24 Hour Answering Service).
The Office can help you identify whether this is specific to your house or is due to an outage from a break or repair. The Answering Service will take a message and report the problem to Operations. Staff will work together until the problem is identified and report back to the customer as to the problem and the proposed solution.
Q: If I discover a leak or water line break, who should I call?
A: If the leak or break is inside your house, on your property, or emerging from part of your private service line, call a plumber. The greater the water loss and the resulting damage, the sooner you should take action. Homeowners are responsible for service lines and plumbing.
If the break or leak is in or near the street or in a common area, if possible make an assessment—is a lot of water being lost, is it causing any damage or is it a hazard? If yes, call 303-688-7072 (24 Hour Answering Service) to report it as soon as possible. If it is not a serious problem, call 303-526-2025 (District Office). Staff will determine what action needs to be taken. In some cases the problem will be referred to the owners of the lateral.
Q: Is it true that water lines (other than private service lines) in a lateral must be maintained by the owners of the lateral, for example, the Homeowners Association? This seems unusual, why is this?
A: Yes, paragraphs above the Q&A section for further information. This arrangement came to be based on the historical context at the time the District formed. Jefferson County approved the formation of the District based on the Service Plan, which provides for this separation of ownership and responsibility.
Q: Why is my water sometimes off even though there is no break close to my house?
A: Repairs or breaks even far away can affect some houses, depending on the location of the house within the gravity fed system and how much water is being consumed by all customers from the pipelines during the outage. It also depends on whether the break is on the main line or another lateral, the layout of the lines, and whether a line can be fed from more than one direction. There are certain areas in the system that rarely experience outages and others that are affected more frequently. Also, water could be off due to a shut-off of your service for various reasons. See the first Q&A above for further information.
Q: Who owns the water treatment facility?
A: LMWD is a Special District as governed by Title 32 of the Colorado Revised Statutes. In terms of a system it is tap owners and property owners included in the District’s boundaries, the Board of Directors, and the contractors and consultants who provide operation and management. Its assets include the rights to stored water within the reservoirs of the Beaver Brook Watershed, the treatment facility, and components of the distribution system, such as the tank, main pipeline, and meters. The Board of Directors meets on a monthly basis and meetings are open to the public. Please see other parts of the website for more information: www.lookoutmountainwaterdistrict.org
Q: Where can I get billing questions answered?
A: Please see other parts of the website for more information about rates, fees, billing and collection policy, etc.: www.lookoutmountainwaterdistrict.org
If you have a specific question about your bill call 303-526-2025 (District Office).
Q: Can I purchase a water tap from the District?
A: No. All of the District’s authorized taps have been issued, thus, the District has no taps for sale. To protect the water supply for the authorized active and inactive taps due to the District’s limited physical and legal water supply, new taps have not been issued for twenty years.
A number of District taps are presently inactive and either unassigned to a particular piece of property or assigned to vacant land and not yet connected. From time to time, owners offer their inactive taps for sale. The District does not act as a broker for such taps. Pursuant to Statute, the District’s tap owner and customer lists are not subject to public disclosure and, accordingly, the District does not divulge the names of inactive tap owners to inquiring parties. However, upon request of the tap owner, the District will make known to inquirers the availability of a tap for sale.
Q: How many water taps are served by the District?
A: The District has 563 authorized taps. Approximately 500 are active and 63 are inactive. Of the 63 inactive taps, 35 are presently assigned to property and 28 are unassigned. 95% of all taps provide residential service. About 2.5% of taps are owned by government agencies (e.g. fire or ambulance districts, school districts, Jefferson County, or Denver Mountain Parks) and 2.5% by other non-residential (e.g. communications/tower facilities, church or retail/restaurant).
Q: Does the District provide sanitation (wastewater) and storm drainage?
A: No. Except in a few locations of our service area, public sanitation and storm drainage does not exist. Most of the District’s customers have individual septic systems (See section under Customer Service). Genesee Water and Sanitation District and El Rancho Metropolitan District overlap our District and provide such services in a few cases.