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Water in Cochise County
What the state and federal record says about water across Cochise County. Each figure names the agency it came from.
Can I drill a well here?
Yes, an exempt well, with Active Management Area limits on much of the county
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Outside an Active Management Area
An exempt well (35 gallons a minute or less) is allowed for any use but irrigation, with no yearly cap. Domestic use includes growing plants on under two acres.
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Inside an Active Management Area
An exempt well is allowed, but use other than household and stock watering is capped at 10 acre-feet a year.
- Active Management Areas here: Douglas AMA, Willcox AMA.
- Every well needs a notice of intention to drill filed with ADWR and a licensed driller. On five acres or less the county health authority also signs off the site plan, and no well may sit within 100 feet of a septic system.
What has actually been permitted in Cochise County
- 1,508exempt wells registered since 2015
- 2,303production wells of every kind since 2015
- 415feet, the typical exempt well depth
- 192feet down to water, typically
ADWR wells registry Decided by: ADWR, on the notice of intention to drill.
- 24,263 Wells on record across 6,324 square miles
- 333 ft Well depth middle value across 2,680 of 6,324 square miles
- 211 ft Depth to water middle value across 103 of 6,324 square miles
Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.
Cochise County by the square mile
Each figure below is one number for the whole county. The map places the same records on the ground, square mile by square mile.
Wells on record. Every well ADWR has a record of, exempt and non-exempt together.
- none on record (bare ground)
- up to 1
- 2
- 3 to 4
- 5 to 10
- 11 to 40
- over 40
6,324 surveyed sections, drawn 2 by 2 miles to a square. The shading is scaled against every county in Arizona, so a color means the same thing on any of these pages. The outline is the county boundary from the Census Bureau: ground inside the line and outside the shading is ground nobody has drilled, filed on or addressed. Aerial imagery is the USGS National Map.
Most monitored wells here are falling rather than recovering
88% of the 170 wells ADWR has monitored for twenty years are declining rather than recovering, against 72% in the median county. This counts wells, not feet: a county can be losing only a foot a year and still have almost every well in it pointing the same way, which is what says the drawdown is regional rather than one heavy pumper.
ADWR groundwater level change 1 of 15 counties
88% here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A lot of this county is land with nothing built on it
45% of the county holds parcels with no situs address, against 28% in the median county, meaning no building with a number on the door. This is raw land country, which is the market, and it also means few neighbours to share a road, a line or a well with.
County assessor parcel records 1 of 15 counties
45% here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The water table here has dropped a long way in twenty years
The median monitored well is -14 feet lower than it was twenty years ago, against -2 ft in the median county, across 170 wells. A well drilled to yesterday's depth may need deepening.
ADWR groundwater level change 2 of 15 counties
-14 ft here 2nd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A large share of this county cannot be bought at all
34% of the county is State Trust land, against 10% in the median county. Arizona holds nine million acres in trust for its schools and does not sell them on request: the land is leased, and it changes hands only at public auction when the Land Department chooses to offer it. The practical effect on a neighbouring parcel is that the ground next door stays as it is, which cuts both ways.
Arizona State Land Department 2 of 15 counties
34% here 2nd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Wells here may be treated as pumping the river
0.7% of the county lies in a subflow zone, where a well is legally drawing surface water and falls under the adjudication rather than under groundwater rules.
Arizona general stream adjudications 3 of 9 counties
0.7% here 3rd of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A lot of this county is in a mapped floodplain
34% of the county intersects a FEMA special flood hazard area. In Arizona that is usually a wash rather than a river, dry for most of the year and the reason the insurance is required anyway.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer 3 of 15 counties
34% here 3rd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Ground here is prime farmland, but only if it is irrigated
71% of sections carry soil the USDA classes as 'prime farmland if irrigated'. The qualifier is the whole sentence: the soil is excellent and the classification depends on water reaching it.
USDA SSURGO soil survey 3 of 10 counties
71% here 3rd of 10 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Much of this county is inside an Active Management Area
39% of the county sits in Willcox AMA. Inside an AMA the state limits new groundwater pumping and a subdivision must prove a hundred-year assured water supply before it can sell lots. Outside one, almost none of that applies, and which side of the line a property falls on changes what can be built there.
ADWR Active Management Areas 5 of 9 counties
39% here 5th of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A lot of this county is within five miles of a federal cleanup site
9% of the county lies within five miles of a Superfund site. Five miles is proximity rather than contamination, and it is the distance at which a groundwater plume stops being somebody else's problem.
EPA Superfund national priorities list 5 of 13 counties
9% here 5th of 13 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Wells here have to go a long way down
The typical well is 332 feet deep, across 24,263 wells on record. Drilling is priced by the foot and the casing with it, so depth is the first line of any estimate for putting water on raw land, and it is the number a seller is least likely to volunteer.
ADWR wells registry 8 of 15 counties
332 ft here 8th of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The aquifer under this county is dropping, even where the county's own wells are quiet
The basin this county draws from is down -17 feet over twenty years, against -1 ft in the median county. A basin is bigger than a county and the water does not respect the line: pumping on the far side of it reaches here.
ADWR groundwater level change 1 of 15 counties
-17 ft here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The land here is sinking where the aquifer was drawn down
1,231 mapped subsidence features and no confirmed fissures yet. Subsidence is what precedes a fissure, and it is worth knowing about before it becomes one.
AZGS earth fissure and subsidence mapping 2 of 9 counties
1,231 here 2nd of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Ground here has cracked open where the water was pumped out
1,954 confirmed earth fissures and 1,231 mapped subsidence features. Fissures open when an aquifer is drawn down and the land above settles unevenly. They swallow fences, roads and foundations, and no ordinary policy covers them.
1,954 here The bar is the whole county and the fill is this county's share.
For one parcel in Cochise County
The figures above describe the whole county. The Land, Development and Rights reports answer for one parcel: what water conveys, whether a household well needs only a notice, and whether the county requires an adequate water supply to split it. Each answer gives the evidence within a mile and who decides.
Search an address in Cochise County