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Water in Gila County
What the state and federal record says about water across Gila County. Each figure names the agency it came from.
Can I drill a well here?
Yes, an exempt well of 35 gallons a minute or less
-
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.
- 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 Gila County
- 470exempt wells registered since 2015
- 525production wells of every kind since 2015
- 220feet, the typical exempt well depth
- 72feet down to water, typically
ADWR wells registry Decided by: ADWR, on the notice of intention to drill.
- 10,690 Wells on record across 4,925 square miles
- 200 ft Well depth middle value across 597 of 4,925 square miles
- 102 ft Depth to water middle value across 24 of 4,925 square miles
Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.
Gila 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
4,925 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.
Water rights here are still being decided in court
100% of the county falls inside a general stream adjudication that has run for decades and is not finished. Until it ends, who holds what is formally unsettled.
Arizona general stream adjudications 1 of 14 counties
100% here 1st of 14 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Water sampled here comes back over a federal limit more often than it should
12.5% of groundwater samples in this county exceeded a federal drinking water standard, against 4% in the median county, across 9,712 samples. In Arizona the usual culprit is arsenic, which is natural, invisible, and a treatment cost rather than a reason not to buy.
Water Quality Portal (USGS and EPA) 1 of 15 counties
12.5% here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
FEMA has never determined the flood risk for most of this county
100% of the county is FEMA Zone D, which means undetermined hazard, against 56% in the median county. Nobody has looked. That is a different thing from being studied and coming back outside the floodplain, and a lender or an insurer will treat the two differently.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer 2 of 15 counties
100% here 2nd of 15 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
10% 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 4 of 13 counties
10% here 4th of 13 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Much of this county is tribal land
39% of the county is tribal land, where water rights are federally reserved and settled separately from the state system.
Arizona general stream adjudications 5 of 13 counties
39% here 5th of 13 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The water table here has risen over twenty years
The median monitored well is 3.8 feet higher than it was twenty years ago, across 50 wells. That is unusual in Arizona and it is usually the result of a surface water supply arriving and pumping easing off rather than of rain.
3.8 ft here The bar is the whole county and the fill is this county's share.
For one parcel in Gila 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 Gila County