Stock wells in Washington County

1,958 of the 5,722 well permits in Washington County — 34.2% — are decreed for stock.

How this group compares

Washington County holds 6.2% of Colorado’s 31,328 stock permits, while holding 1.0% of the register overall — so it is over-represented in this use.

Stock means watering livestock.

What happened to these permits

1,348 of the 1,958 permits decreed for stock in Washington County ended with a well the Division was told about — 68.8%. And 157 expired without one: 8.0%.

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 Washington County, or need a well drilled?

1,958 well permits are on the Division’s register in Washington County, 157 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 5,722 permits in Washington County, and every stock permit in Colorado.

Other groups of a similar size

• Stock — Elbert 2,187
• Domestic — Eagle 2,110
• Domestic — Washington 2,080
• Domestic — Archuleta 2,053
• Monitoring/sampling — Douglas 2,001
• Domestic — Kit Carson 1,983
• Irrigation — Adams 1,926
• Domestic — Delta 1,889
• Not stated — Jefferson 1,872
• Municipal — Douglas 1,698
• Domestic — Montrose 1,672