Irrigation
47,689 of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 7.9%.
What this use allows
Irrigation means watering land, at the volume the permit allows.
| Measurement | Median | 90th percentile | Colorado median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth | 94 ft | 368 ft | 148 ft — shallower here (28,791 permits, 60 %) |
| Yield | 700 gpm | 1500 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (8,010 permits, 17 %) |
| Static water level | 26 ft | 172 ft | 58 ft — lower here (23,527 permits, 49 %) |
Where they are
| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Weld | 6,468 | 13.6% |
| Yuma | 4,622 | 9.7% |
| Alamosa | 3,228 | 6.8% |
| Baca | 2,904 | 6.1% |
| Morgan | 2,625 | 5.5% |
| Kit Carson | 2,480 | 5.2% |
| Saguache | 2,476 | 5.2% |
| Rio Grande | 2,407 | 5.0% |
| Adams | 1,926 | 4.0% |
| Prowers | 1,430 | 3.0% |
| Pueblo | 1,399 | 2.9% |
| Phillips | 1,345 | 2.8% |
| Logan | 1,288 | 2.7% |
| El Paso | 1,164 | 2.4% |
| Washington | 1,098 | 2.3% |
| Larimer | 914 | 1.9% |
| Arapahoe | 829 | 1.7% |
| Otero | 796 | 1.7% |
| Sedgwick | 765 | 1.6% |
| Costilla | 603 | 1.3% |
| Conejos | 562 | 1.2% |
| Douglas | 535 | 1.1% |
| Jefferson | 505 | 1.1% |
| Cheyenne | 481 | 1.0% |
| Elbert | 467 | 1.0% |
| Bent | 445 | 0.9% |
| Lincoln | 328 | 0.7% |
| Denver | 316 | 0.7% |
| Boulder | 308 | 0.6% |
| Kiowa | 261 | 0.5% |
What happened to these permits
19,442 of the 47,689 permits decreed for irrigation ended with a well the Division was told about — 40.8%. And 4,473 expired without one: 9.4%.
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.
| Status | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Well Constructed | 19,442 | 40.8% |
| Application Denied | 6,230 | 13.1% |
| Final Permit | 5,538 | 11.6% |
| Permit Expired | 4,473 | 9.4% |
| Permit Canceled | 3,033 | 6.4% |
| Well Abandoned | 2,384 | 5.0% |
| Permit Issued | 1,789 | 3.8% |
| Well Replaced - Abandonment Required | 1,266 | 2.7% |
| Application Information Requested | 1,246 | 2.6% |
| Application Received | 553 | 1.2% |
Buying land in Colorado, or need a well drilled?
47,689 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 4,473 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
- Stock 31,328
- Commercial 22,356
- Other 18,823
- Not stated 15,448
- Municipal 9,424
- Industrial 8,665
- Geothermal 3,815