Domestic wells in La Plata County

10,644 of the 18,518 well permits in La Plata County — 57.5% — are decreed for domestic.

How this group compares

La Plata County holds 4.4% of Colorado’s 243,096 domestic permits, while holding 3.1% of the register overall — so it is over-represented in this use.

Domestic means household water, and usually a little more — the commonest decreed use in Colorado by a wide margin.

What happened to these permits

6,542 of the 10,644 permits decreed for domestic in La Plata County ended with a well the Division was told about — 61.5%. And 2,356 expired without one: 22.1%.

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.

Buying land in La Plata County, or need a well drilled?

10,644 well permits are on the Division’s register in La Plata County, 2,356 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.

The permits

Part of a bigger picture: all 18,518 permits in La Plata County, and every domestic permit in Colorado.

Other groups of a similar size

• Domestic — Weld 14,428
• Household Use Only — Park 14,356
• Household Use Only — Jefferson 13,857
• Domestic — Douglas 13,804
• Monitoring/sampling — Weld 10,978
• Domestic — Elbert 10,857
• Domestic — Adams 9,364
• Monitoring/sampling — Adams 9,123
• Domestic — Boulder 8,225
• Monitoring/sampling — Jefferson 8,093
• Domestic — Larimer 7,975