# How deep are wells in Colorado? Depth and yield by county

> Median well depth and yield in 63 Colorado counties, measured on 600,017 permits. From 30 feet to 360 feet depending on where you drill.

## How deep, and how much water

The statewide median well is **148 feet** deep and yields **10 gallons a minute**. Neither number means much on its own, because the county you are in changes it by a factor of six.

### The question this answers

Before you buy rural land in Colorado, you want to know what a well will
cost. Depth is the largest term in that: a driller charges by the foot. The
Division holds the depth of every well it was told about —
380,522 of them — and does not publish it as a
figure you can look up. This page is that figure.

### ⚠️ Medians, and only on what was reported

Every number here is a **median**. A mean would be carried
away by a handful of industrial and monitoring holes thousands of feet deep,
and would tell you something false about an ordinary domestic well. The count
in the last column is how many permits each median rests on.

Depth is reported on 63 % of permits, yield on 23 %,
static water level on 49 %. A blank is **not a zero**:
where the Division was never told, this site says so.

### Every county with enough permits to measure

*Medians, over the permits where the Division was told — never a mean*

| County | Median depth (ft) | Median yield (gpm) | Permits measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Douglas](/county/douglas.md) | **360** | 13 | 13,848 |
| [Elbert](/county/elbert.md) | **341** | 12 | 10,646 |
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso.md) | **292** | 10 | 29,266 |
| [Baca](/county/baca.md) | **270** | 650 | 3,227 |
| [Phillips](/county/phillips.md) | **270** | 20 | 1,499 |
| [Teller](/county/teller.md) | **260** | 6 | 7,373 |
| [Clear Creek](/county/clear-creek.md) | **252** | 7 | 3,502 |
| [Gilpin](/county/gilpin.md) | **250** | 7 | 3,355 |
| [Park](/county/park.md) | **240** | 5.7 | 16,402 |
| [Kit Carson](/county/kit-carson.md) | **235** | 20 | 4,124 |
| [Yuma](/county/yuma.md) | **232** | 15 | 7,725 |
| [Ouray](/county/ouray.md) | **220** | 10 | 791 |
| [Moffat](/county/moffat.md) | **210** | 8 | 2,687 |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson.md) | **203** | 6 | 27,288 |
| [Custer](/county/custer.md) | **200** | 7.5 | 5,088 |
| [Grand](/county/grand.md) | **185** | 9 | 7,470 |
| [San Miguel](/county/san-miguel.md) | **182** | 7 | 2,055 |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer.md) | **180** | 6 | 14,026 |
| [Fremont](/county/fremont.md) | **180** | 7 | 7,111 |
| [Costilla](/county/costilla.md) | **170** | 10 | 2,666 |
| [Routt](/county/routt.md) | **160** | 8 | 4,418 |
| [La Plata](/county/la-plata.md) | **150** | 10 | 11,217 |
| [Arapahoe](/county/arapahoe.md) | **150** | 12 | 9,820 |
| [Las Animas](/county/las-animas.md) | **150** | 6.5 | 3,133 |
| [Dolores](/county/dolores.md) | **150** | 6 | 417 |
| [Boulder](/county/boulder.md) | **145** | 7 | 13,854 |
| [Archuleta](/county/archuleta.md) | **140** | 10 | 2,422 |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache.md) | **120** | 15 | 5,850 |
| [Summit](/county/summit.md) | **120** | 10 | 5,393 |
| [Eagle](/county/eagle.md) | **120** | 15 | 2,531 |
| [Huerfano](/county/huerfano.md) | **110** | 8 | 2,640 |
| [Lake](/county/lake.md) | **106** | 10 | 1,801 |
| [Chaffee](/county/chaffee.md) | **104** | 12 | 7,598 |
| [Garfield](/county/garfield.md) | **103** | 15 | 7,515 |
| [Pitkin](/county/pitkin.md) | **103** | 15 | 2,923 |
| [Rio Grande](/county/rio-grande.md) | **100** | 15 | 7,329 |
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa.md) | **100** | 20 | 6,527 |
| [Conejos](/county/conejos.md) | **100** | 14 | 4,180 |
| [Washington](/county/washington.md) | **100** | 15 | 3,729 |
| [Rio Blanco](/county/rio-blanco.md) | **100** | 12 | 1,610 |
| [Sedgwick](/county/sedgwick.md) | **100** | 50 | 1,518 |
| [Jackson](/county/jackson.md) | **100** | 10 | 1,206 |
| [Prowers](/county/prowers.md) | **99** | 43 | 2,447 |
| [Morgan](/county/morgan.md) | **91** | 20 | 7,086 |
| [Montezuma](/county/montezuma.md) | **90** | 10 | 1,301 |
| [Logan](/county/logan.md) | **88** | 15 | 6,528 |
| [Delta](/county/delta.md) | **88** | 15 | 2,494 |
| [Hinsdale](/county/hinsdale.md) | **85** | 15 | 826 |
| [Mineral](/county/mineral.md) | **80** | 15 | 1,114 |
| [Bent](/county/bent.md) | **78** | 15 | 1,670 |
| [Cheyenne](/county/cheyenne.md) | **72** | 15 | 1,281 |
| [Gunnison](/county/gunnison.md) | **70** | 15 | 5,488 |
| [Mesa](/county/mesa.md) | **67** | 8 | 3,876 |
| [Kiowa](/county/kiowa.md) | **64** | 15 | 832 |
| [Montrose](/county/montrose.md) | **61** | 10 | 2,485 |
| [Weld](/county/weld.md) | **56** | 14 | 27,212 |
| [Adams](/county/adams.md) | **55** | 12 | 15,737 |
| [Lincoln](/county/lincoln.md) | **53** | 10 | 2,768 |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo.md) | **45** | 10.7 | 8,572 |
| [Otero](/county/otero.md) | **40** | 25 | 2,329 |
| [Crowley](/county/crowley.md) | **40** | 45 | 782 |
| [Broomfield](/county/broomfield.md) | **34** | 10 | 622 |
| [Denver](/county/denver.md) | **30** | 70 | 6,964 |

### Why the spread is so wide

It is geology, and it is mostly the Denver Basin. 175,512 permits draw
on one of the four named Denver Basin aquifers — Dawson, Denver,
Arapahoe, Laramie-Fox Hills, in that order of depth. On the Front Range that
means drilling through hundreds of feet to reach water that is legally
allocated differently from the shallow alluvial water in a river valley.

The counties near the top of this table are Denver Basin counties. The ones
near the bottom sit on alluvium along a river, where water is shallow and
closely tied to the surface stream — which is why it is regulated more
tightly.

| Aquifer | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [All Unnamed Aquifers](/aquifer/all-unnamed-aquifers.md) | 465,783 | 77.6% |
| [Not stated](/aquifer/not-stated.md) | 19,134 | 3.2% |
| [Dawson](/aquifer/dawson.md) | 14,024 | 2.3% |
| [Denver](/aquifer/denver.md) | 13,929 | 2.3% |
| [Alluvial](/aquifer/alluvial.md) | 13,890 | 2.3% |
| [Ogallala](/aquifer/ogallala.md) | 11,241 | 1.9% |
| [Arapahoe](/aquifer/arapahoe.md) | 9,456 | 1.6% |
| [Laramie Fox Hills](/aquifer/laramie-fox-hills.md) | 7,796 | 1.3% |
| [Upper Dawson](/aquifer/upper-dawson.md) | 6,943 | 1.2% |
| [Quaternary Alluvium](/aquifer/quaternary-alluvium.md) | 5,403 | 0.9% |
| [Lower Dawson](/aquifer/lower-dawson.md) | 4,944 | 0.8% |
| [Unconfined San Luis Vall](/aquifer/unconfined-san-luis-vall.md) | 3,975 | 0.7% |
| [Unconfined San Luis Valley Aquifer](/aquifer/unconfined-san-luis-valley-aquifer.md) | 3,520 | 0.6% |
| [Laramie-fox Hills](/aquifer/laramie-fox-hills.md) | 2,605 | 0.4% |
| [Confined San Luis Valley](/aquifer/confined-san-luis-valley.md) | 2,551 | 0.4% |
| [Upper Arapahoe](/aquifer/upper-arapahoe.md) | 2,224 | 0.4% |
| [Lower Arapahoe](/aquifer/lower-arapahoe.md) | 2,084 | 0.3% |
| [Dakota](/aquifer/dakota.md) | 1,758 | 0.3% |
| [Confined San Luis Valley Aquifer](/aquifer/confined-san-luis-valley-aquifer.md) | 1,683 | 0.3% |

### ⚠️ What this cannot tell you

Not what your well will cost, and not whether it will produce. A median is
what happened on other parcels; the parcel you are looking at has its own
geology, and the only thing that settles it is a driller who works the area.
Nothing in this register says whether a well still produces today — the
depth was recorded once, when the well was built.

### Need a well drilled, or a figure for a parcel you are buying?

A median is what happened on other parcels. What it will cost on yours takes a driller who works the county. Tell us where and we pass the request to drillers 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).

**Not a consumer reporting agency.** This site
and the datasets sold from it are **not** consumer reports under
the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and must not be used to decide anyone's
eligibility for employment, credit, insurance, housing, or any other purpose
covered by the FCRA. If you need a background check, use a screening company
that operates as a consumer reporting agency.

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