# Municipal well permits in Colorado — 9,424

> 9,424 Colorado wells are permitted for municipal. What that allows, where they are, and how deep they go.

## Municipal

**9,424** of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 1.6%.

### What this use allows

Municipal means a public water supply.

*Medians, on the permits where the Division was told — never a mean, which a few industrial wells would carry away*

| Measurement | Median | 90th percentile | Colorado median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth | **190 ft** | 1544 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (3,298 permits, 35 %) |
| Yield | **100 gpm** | 690 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (1,367 permits, 15 %) |
| Static water level | **50 ft** | 556 ft | 58 ft — lower here (2,751 permits, 29 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Douglas](/county/douglas/municipal.md) | 1,698 | 18.0% |
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso/municipal.md) | 1,003 | 10.6% |
| [Arapahoe](/county/arapahoe.md) | 889 | 9.4% |
| [Adams](/county/adams.md) | 835 | 8.9% |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson.md) | 465 | 4.9% |
| [Weld](/county/weld.md) | 380 | 4.0% |
| [Eagle](/county/eagle.md) | 278 | 2.9% |
| [Garfield](/county/garfield.md) | 271 | 2.9% |
| [Summit](/county/summit.md) | 199 | 2.1% |
| [Boulder](/county/boulder.md) | 187 | 2.0% |
| [Elbert](/county/elbert.md) | 175 | 1.9% |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo.md) | 156 | 1.7% |
| [Teller](/county/teller.md) | 151 | 1.6% |
| [Rio Blanco](/county/rio-blanco.md) | 146 | 1.5% |
| [Grand](/county/grand.md) | 134 | 1.4% |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache.md) | 133 | 1.4% |
| [Denver](/county/denver.md) | 126 | 1.3% |
| [Routt](/county/routt.md) | 123 | 1.3% |
| [La Plata](/county/la-plata.md) | 121 | 1.3% |
| [Prowers](/county/prowers.md) | 117 | 1.2% |
| [Morgan](/county/morgan.md) | 108 | 1.1% |
| [Pitkin](/county/pitkin.md) | 102 | 1.1% |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer.md) | 93 | 1.0% |
| [Gunnison](/county/gunnison.md) | 91 | 1.0% |
| [San Miguel](/county/san-miguel.md) | 88 | 0.9% |
| [Otero](/county/otero.md) | 87 | 0.9% |
| [Chaffee](/county/chaffee.md) | 76 | 0.8% |
| [Park](/county/park.md) | 74 | 0.8% |
| [Logan](/county/logan.md) | 68 | 0.7% |
| [Fremont](/county/fremont.md) | 55 | 0.6% |

### What happened to these permits

**2,483** of the 9,424 permits decreed for municipal ended with a
well the Division was told about — 26.3%. And
**2,295** expired without one: 24.4%.

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](/expired.md).

| Status | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Well Constructed | 2,483 | 26.3% |
| Permit Expired | 2,295 | 24.4% |
| Application Denied | 1,620 | 17.2% |
| Application Information Requested | 709 | 7.5% |
| Well Abandoned | 614 | 6.5% |
| Permit Canceled | 396 | 4.2% |
| Permit Issued | 363 | 3.9% |
| Application Received | 239 | 2.5% |
| Application Withdrawn | 151 | 1.6% |
| Final Permit | 144 | 1.5% |

### Buying land in Colorado, or need a well drilled?

9,424 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 2,295 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](/privacy.md).

### The other decreed uses

- [Domestic](/use/domestic.md) 243,096
- [Household Use Only](/use/household-use-only.md) 105,372
- [Monitoring/sampling](/use/monitoring-sampling.md) 91,022
- [Irrigation](/use/irrigation.md) 47,689
- [Stock](/use/stock.md) 31,328
- [Commercial](/use/commercial.md) 22,356
- [Other](/use/other.md) 18,823
- [Not stated](/use/not-stated.md) 15,448
- [Industrial](/use/industrial.md) 8,665
- [Geothermal](/use/geothermal.md) 3,815

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