Pay bill Pay bill
Homepage Facilities Facilities Clear Spring Ranch Resource Recovery Facility

Clear Spring Ranch Resource Recovery Facility

Address: 14391 Auge Way, Fountain, CO 80817

Facility information

The Clear Spring Ranch Resource Recovery Facility serves as a crucial part of our wastewater system, treating biosolids recovered from the Las Vegas Street and J.D. Phillips Water Resource Recovery Facilities.

The facility is located about 17 miles southwest of downtown Colorado Springs on a 4,000-acre property near our Nixon and Front Range Power Plants. It began operation in 1984.

An aerial photo of a tan brick facility with circular structures emerging from a hill behind the main building. In the foreground, a dark blue lake is visible before a road. It's a sunny day and the surrounding fields are brown and tan, indicating this photo was taken in winter.

At Clear Spring Ranch, we use an anaerobic digestion process to treat solid waste. This means that we use bacteria to break down the solids into methane, carbon dioxide and other gasses.

Any solids remaining after this process are stored in sludge basins for up to five years for further treatment. Once that process is finished, we pump it from the basins and inject it below the soil surface in fields. 

We follow strict rules and take careful steps to protect the environment. This facility is a zero-discharge facility, meaning all fluids and groundwater are contained onsite. The only way that water is removed from this site is through evaporation.

Additionally, methane gas generated in the process is burned in gas boilers and used for digester heating and heating buildings at the plant.

Facility tours

Our facility tours are a great way to learn how we generate electricity and the impressive infrastructure required to supply power to our community.

Tours are tailored to fit the specific needs of a school or organization and are free of charge.

  • Age requirement: 6th grade or 12 years old & up
  • Group size: Five attendees minimum, 20 maximum
  • Tour length: 90 minutes
  • Day offered: Wednesdays[tooltip text="Tours on Tuesdays or Thursdays are available by special request only. Email communityrelations@csu.org to request tours on these days."]
  • Start times: 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., or 12:30 p.m.

Public tour dates

For groups smaller than five, please register for one of our regularly scheduled public tour dates:

  • Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026 at 9 a.m.

Tour participants are required to wear appropriate clothes, which include long pants (no dresses or skirts), closed-toed walking shoes and clothing/accessories for expected weather.

Due to safety concerns, visitors with inappropriate dress will not be able to tour the entire operational facility. We provide additional safety equipment, when required, to tour a facility (i.e. hard hats, safety glasses, ear protection).

Tours are scheduled in the order requests are received. Tours must be requested at least three weeks in advance.

Tour policy

Tour registration form

 

Open registration form in a new window

Colorado Springs Utilities 

It's how we're all connected.

Download our app!

Download in the apple store Download in the google play store