Arizona ยท counties
Water in Yuma County
What the state and federal record says about water across Yuma 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.
- 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 Yuma County
- 626exempt wells registered since 2015
- 904production wells of every kind since 2015
- 200feet, the typical exempt well depth
- 60feet down to water, typically
ADWR wells registry Decided by: ADWR, on the notice of intention to drill.
- 10,987 Wells on record across 5,630 square miles
- 200 ft Well depth middle value across 711 of 5,630 square miles
- 99 ft Depth to water middle value across 20 of 5,630 square miles
Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.
Yuma 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
5,630 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.
A lot of this county is within five miles of a federal cleanup site
33% 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 1 of 13 counties
33% here 1st of 13 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A lot of well registrations here have been cancelled
27% of well records are cancelled. A cancelled registration is not a well you can use.
ADWR wells registry 3 of 15 counties
27% here 3rd 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
76% of the county is FEMA Zone D, which means undetermined hazard. 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 3 of 15 counties
76% here 3rd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The water table here is falling faster than it used to
Twenty years of monitoring show -2.3 feet of change and the last ten show -2.4. Half the record has produced more than half the drop, so the decline is steepening rather than levelling off. A well drilled to a depth that worked ten years ago has less margin than the twenty-year figure suggests.
ADWR groundwater level change 3 of 10 counties
-0.1 ft/yr here 3rd of 10 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Most monitored wells here are falling rather than recovering
75% of the 32 wells ADWR has monitored for twenty years are declining rather than recovering. 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 5 of 15 counties
75% here 5th 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
6.2% of groundwater samples in this county exceeded a federal drinking water standard, across 5,185 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) 5 of 15 counties
6.2% here 5th of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Parcels here are large
The typical parcel is 158 acres. 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 3 of 15 counties
158 ac here 3rd 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
549 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 4 of 9 counties
549 here 4th of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
For one parcel in Yuma 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 Yuma County