Seems they predate the Homeless Camping debate by at least a decade. One of the problems that was present when the City and County of Pueblo sued Colorado Springs for fouling their water, e-coli. Seems Colorado Springs and Springs Utilities reached a plea-bargain mitigating the judgment against the Springs by making necessary repairs to the sewage system. This includes that bad ol' StormWater that the right wingsters keep whining about. The wastewater treatment facilities were overwhelmed on several levels, not the least of which were the BlowHard Extremists like Douglas Bruce not wanting to pay their bills. Have their cake, eat it too, and then have somebody else pay for the cake. The sewer system including the Storm Drains, which funnel water off the streets, which in turn are coated with an oily residue from the exhaust fumes. More cars, more pavement, more pollution and all of it running into a sewage treatment system last upgraded in the early 1960s. 50 years ago. More streets, more infrastructure added on, and each year the cost of the labor and the materials needed to build and maintain that infrastructure increasing, yet Doug Bruce and his dumbass Zombie Followers insist on only paying the bills in 1972 dollars. And screaming that increasing the fees necessary to maintain that infrastructure and build new infrastructure to accommodate those victims of the Real Estate Scam of "Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water" moving to town and making the water somewhat less pure. Lethally less pure. Some of the impurities in Fountain Creek before the confluence with Monument Creek keep the smelly algae that makes Monument stink so bad from growing. Also any other algae, insect larvae, and amphibian newts, efts and tadpoles. N-Nitrosodimethylamine, likely sources:Industry, cosmetics, toiletry products, cleansers; by-product of natural chemical reactions. That's the one Springs Utilities admits is beyond EPA and drinking water safety bounds. Chemicals they say are in "safe amounts" Barium, Bromodichloromethane Chlorodibromomethane Chloroform Fluoride Hexachlorocyclopentadiene Nitrates Radium, Combined 226 228 Sodium, Turbidity (muddiness) Uranium Chlorine Maloacetic Acids Trihalomethanes Coliform (bacteria) E-Coli (the coliform bacteria they're blaming on the Homeless People, before that it was the pigeons in Manitou Springs) Copper Lead A lot of the "possible sources of contamination" listed are Erosion of native deposits. Erosion hastened by destroying topsoil, uprooting native plants, GRADING FOR ROADS, COMMERCIAL AND HOUSING CONSTRUCTION, MINING, QUARRYING, DRILLING, TIMBER CLEARING, OFF-ROAD "RECREATIONAL" VEHICLE USE For instance, there's at least one defunct copper mine just outside Manitou Springs city limits that drains directly into Fountain Creek. When you pull ONE metal out of the earth, it's not in pure form, ever, is it, O Right Wing Mining Geniuses Who Think I Can't Possibly Know Anything? Nay verily. It is NOT pure and some of those impurities are other metals. Toxic metals like Uranium, White Arsenic, Sodium in many forms including Sodium Cyanide, Mercury, Lead, Copper, ooops that's one they INTENDED to pull out oopsie my bad. Petrochemicals, mountaintop removal for extracting ANY mineral including coal releases chemicals into the waters that have recently been shown to cause a hormonal mutation in small-mouth bass where the male fish develop with