# Wells in the Confined San Luis Valley Aquifer aquifer, Colorado — 1,683

> 1,683 Colorado well permits draw on the Confined San Luis Valley Aquifer aquifer, at a median depth of 260 feet.

## The Confined San Luis Valley Aquifer aquifer

**1,683** permits — 0.3% of the register — are recorded against this aquifer.

### What this aquifer is

an aquifer the Division records under this name.

Which aquifer a well draws on is not administrative detail: the
Denver Basin formations have their own legal regime, and alluvial water is
tied to the surface stream, which is why it is regulated differently. The
depth below is the practical consequence.

*Medians, on the permits where the Division was told — never a mean, which a few industrial wells would carry away*

| Measurement | Median | 90th percentile | Colorado median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth | **260 ft** | 687 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (1,145 permits, 68 %) |
| Yield | **30 gpm** | 1200 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (380 permits, 23 %) |
| Static water level | **16 ft** | 67 ft | 58 ft — lower here (377 permits, 22 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa.md) | 714 | 42.4% |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache.md) | 408 | 24.2% |
| [Conejos](/county/conejos.md) | 274 | 16.3% |
| [Rio Grande](/county/rio-grande.md) | 269 | 16.0% |
| [Costilla](/county/costilla.md) | 16 | 1.0% |

### What happened to these permits

**978** of the 1,683 permits on this aquifer ended with a
well the Division was told about — 58.1%. And
**175** expired without one: 10.4%.

An expired permit is the trap in a rural sale. A seller can
produce a permit that lapsed years ago, and a permit is not a water right
— the two are separate, and a purchase turns on both.
[What an expired permit does and does not mean](/expired.md).

| Status | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Well Constructed | 978 | 58.1% |
| Permit Expired | 175 | 10.4% |
| Permit Issued | 131 | 7.8% |
| Well Replaced - Abandonment Required | 103 | 6.1% |
| Application Received | 75 | 4.5% |
| Well Abandoned | 72 | 4.3% |
| Application Denied | 65 | 3.9% |
| Permit Canceled | 55 | 3.3% |
| Application Information Requested | 10 | 0.6% |
| Application Withdrawn | 7 | 0.4% |

### Buying land in Colorado, or need a well drilled?

1,683 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 175 of them expired. This site tells you what a permit says; it does not drill, and it is not advice on a water right. Tell us where and we pass the request to drillers and water-rights advisers working in Colorado.

We take no commission and we recommend no driller. We have no arrangement with any firm today — we are collecting these requests in order to go and find them. [What we do with this](/privacy.md).

### The other aquifers

- [All Unnamed Aquifers](/aquifer/all-unnamed-aquifers.md) 465,783
- [Not stated](/aquifer/not-stated.md) 19,134
- [Dawson](/aquifer/dawson.md) 14,024
- [Denver](/aquifer/denver.md) 13,929
- [Alluvial](/aquifer/alluvial.md) 13,890
- [Ogallala](/aquifer/ogallala.md) 11,241
- [Arapahoe](/aquifer/arapahoe.md) 9,456
- [Laramie Fox Hills](/aquifer/laramie-fox-hills.md) 7,796
- [Upper Dawson](/aquifer/upper-dawson.md) 6,943
- [Quaternary Alluvium](/aquifer/quaternary-alluvium.md) 5,403
- [Lower Dawson](/aquifer/lower-dawson.md) 4,944
- [Unconfined San Luis Vall](/aquifer/unconfined-san-luis-vall.md) 3,975
- [Unconfined San Luis Valley Aquifer](/aquifer/unconfined-san-luis-valley-aquifer.md) 3,520
- [Laramie-fox Hills](/aquifer/laramie-fox-hills.md) 2,605
- [Confined San Luis Valley](/aquifer/confined-san-luis-valley.md) 2,551
- [Upper Arapahoe](/aquifer/upper-arapahoe.md) 2,224
- [Lower Arapahoe](/aquifer/lower-arapahoe.md) 2,084
- [Dakota](/aquifer/dakota.md) 1,758

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Página: https://wells-co.pages.dev/aquifer/confined-san-luis-valley-aquifer/
Fonte: Well Application Permit — Colorado Division of Water Resources
Recolha: 2026-08-21