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Water in La Paz County
What the state and federal record says about water across La Paz 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
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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: Ranegras Plain 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 La Paz County
- 191exempt wells registered since 2015
- 300production wells of every kind since 2015
- 373feet, the typical exempt well depth
- 206feet down to water, typically
ADWR wells registry Decided by: ADWR, on the notice of intention to drill.
- 5,919 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
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
4,623 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
84% of the 73 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 2 of 15 counties
84% 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
21% of the county lies within five miles of a Superfund site, against 5% in the median county. 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.
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.
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.
Wells here have to go a long way down
The typical well is 400 feet deep, across 5,919 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.
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.
Parcels here are large
The typical parcel is 320 acres, against 42 ac in the median county. 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.
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.
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.
For one parcel in La Paz 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 La Paz County