Arizona ยท county water record
Water in La Paz County
What the state and federal record says about water here, before you look at any particular piece of ground. Every finding names the agency it came from.
- 5,916 Wells on record across 4,623 square miles
- 400 ft Well depth middle value across 468 of 4,623 square miles
- 267 ft Depth to water middle value across 41 of 4,623 square miles
Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.
La Paz County by the square mile
Every finding on this page is one number for the whole county. These are the same records placed on the ground they came from.
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
4,623 surveyed sections, drawn 2 by 2 miles to a square. The shading is scaled against every county in Arizona, so a colour 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.
Worth knowing
Nearly every monitored well here is falling
84% of the 73 wells ADWR has monitored for twenty years are declining rather than recovering, against 72% across the state. 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 2 of 15 counties
84% here 2nd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Worth knowing
A lot of this county is within five miles of a federal cleanup site
21% of the county lies within five miles of a Superfund site, against 5% across the state. 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 2 of 13 counties
21% here 2nd of 13 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Worth knowing
The water here stands a long way below the surface
The water table sits 267 feet down in the typical square mile. That is not the depth of the hole, it is where the water stands in it, and it sets the pump, the lift and the power bill for as long as the well runs.
ADWR groundwater level change 3 of 15 counties
267 ft here 3rd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Worth knowing
Water sampled here comes back over a federal limit more often than it should
8.0% of groundwater samples in this county exceeded a federal drinking water standard, across 6,040 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) 3 of 15 counties
8.0% here 3rd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Worth knowing
Wells here have to go a long way down
The typical well is 400 feet deep, across 5,916 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 4 of 15 counties
400 ft here 4th of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Context
Much of this county is inside an Active Management Area
20% of the county sits in Ranegras Plain 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 6 of 9 counties
20% here 6th of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Stands out
Parcels here are large
The typical parcel is 320 acres, against 42 ac across the state. Size is the reason the water question is worth asking: a large parcel with no water is a large parcel you cannot do anything with.
County assessor parcel records 1 of 15 counties
320 ac here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Context
The land here is sinking where the aquifer was drawn down
320 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 6 of 9 counties
320 here 6th of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Worth knowing
Ground here has cracked open where the water was pumped out
10 confirmed earth fissures and 320 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.
10 here The bar is the whole county and the fill is this county's share.
This is the county. Your question is probably a property.
None of the above is about a particular parcel. Water is not parcel-shaped: the ditch serving the ground runs through other people's land and the senior right that curtails it sits somewhere else, which is why the state files by survey section rather than by property. Check an address and you get the square mile it sits in, with the wells, the rights and what was actually diverted.
Check a property in La Paz County