Total Organic Carbon (TOC) is a complex mixture of naturally occurring organic compounds in water and is one of the most important water quality parameters for our source waters. Characteristics of TOC are important to understand because TOC affects the optimization and efficiency of water treatment processes. TOC also can react with chlorine at the water treatment plant to form regulated disinfection byproducts.

Fort Collins Utilities has been involved in several studies related to characterization of TOC in waters from both watersheds. Sources of TOC include soils and vegetation in the surrounding watersheds, and algae and other organisms growing in reservoirs, canals and rivers (WRF #4282). Recent studies identified impacts of recent wildfires on TOC, but these impacts were not shown to significantly affect the treatability of the Cache la Poudre River water (Writer et al., 2014; Hohner et al., 2015).