Geothermal
3,815 of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 0.6%.
What this use allows
Geothermal means a use the Division records under this heading.
| Measurement | Median | 90th percentile | Colorado median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth | 300 ft | 400 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (2,448 permits, 64 %) |
| Yield | 70 gpm | 343 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (12 permits, 0 %) |
| Static water level | 56 ft | 6617 ft | 58 ft — lower here (37 permits, 1 %) |
Where they are
| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Boulder | 453 | 11.9% |
| Montrose | 244 | 6.4% |
| Weld | 237 | 6.2% |
| Larimer | 217 | 5.7% |
| Mesa | 208 | 5.5% |
| Delta | 195 | 5.1% |
| Jefferson | 166 | 4.4% |
| Adams | 165 | 4.3% |
| El Paso | 160 | 4.2% |
| Arapahoe | 142 | 3.7% |
| Denver | 124 | 3.3% |
| Douglas | 113 | 3.0% |
| Pitkin | 57 | 1.5% |
| Elbert | 54 | 1.4% |
| Washington | 52 | 1.4% |
| Pueblo | 48 | 1.3% |
| Yuma | 39 | 1.0% |
| Garfield | 30 | 0.8% |
| La Plata | 27 | 0.7% |
| Gunnison | 26 | 0.7% |
| Eagle | 26 | 0.7% |
| Routt | 22 | 0.6% |
| Morgan | 22 | 0.6% |
| Grand | 20 | 0.5% |
| Kit Carson | 18 | 0.5% |
| Logan | 18 | 0.5% |
| Alamosa | 16 | 0.4% |
| Ouray | 14 | 0.4% |
| San Miguel | 14 | 0.4% |
| Chaffee | 11 | 0.3% |
What happened to these permits
355 of the 3,815 permits decreed for geothermal ended with a well the Division was told about — 9.3%. And 7 expired without one: 0.2%.
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.
| Status | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| NA | 3,301 | 86.5% |
| Well Constructed | 355 | 9.3% |
| Permit Issued | 108 | 2.8% |
| Application Information Requested | 14 | 0.4% |
| Application Received | 11 | 0.3% |
| Permit Expired | 7 | 0.2% |
| Application Withdrawn | 7 | 0.2% |
| Permit Canceled | 4 | 0.1% |
| Application Denied | 2 | 0.1% |
| Permit Extended | 2 | 0.1% |
Buying land in Colorado, or need a well drilled?
3,815 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 7 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 other decreed uses
- Domestic 243,096
- Household Use Only 105,372
- Monitoring/sampling 91,022
- Irrigation 47,689
- Stock 31,328
- Commercial 22,356
- Other 18,823
- Not stated 15,448
- Municipal 9,424
- Industrial 8,665