The tap water nobody's tracking

Hundreds of Colorado neighborhoods get their water not from a city, but from a tiny company run by volunteers — a retired neighbor with a binder, a board that meets twice a year. TapWaterBook is the public registry of those systems: 226 of them, serving 29,360 homes, each with its federal record and the corporation behind it, on one page.

Find your water system

For the people who run them

If you're the secretary, treasurer, or "the one with the binder" for a small water company or HOA system: records on TapWaterBook are free forever — member roll, billing history, minutes — kept safe for whoever takes over next. 101 of the 226 systems in this registry have health-based violations on their federal record; nearly all of the rest still rack up paperwork violations, because monitoring calendars are unforgiving and volunteers inherit them cold. Good records are the difference. It's the same promise our sibling registry, DitchBook, makes to Colorado's ditch companies: records free, forever, phone-first.

Buying a home on a community system?

The listing says "water: association." That means the tap comes with a membership — assessments, transfer paperwork sometimes, and a volunteer board responsible for federal compliance. Look the system up in the directory before closing: its size, its violation history, and whether the corporation behind it is in good standing.