Water wells in Del Norte County.

What the completion reports say

• Median depth

  42 ft

  The middle of 1,823 completion reports for newly drilled water-supply wells. Half were finished shallower, half deeper.

• Eighty per cent finish between

  29–80 ft

  A range wider than the median itself, which means the county figure is a weak guide to any one property. What the neighbours hit matters more than what the county did.

• Deepest on record

  500 ft

  One well. It says what the county has demanded of a rig at least once, not what it usually asks.

• Water level, where recorded

  19 ft

  How deep the water stood when the well was finished, on the 145 reports that recorded it — 8% of the county's wells. This is the measurement Texas's record does not carry at all. It describes the day it was written: levels move with the season, the year and the pumping around them.

• Tested yield, where measured

  16 GPM

  What the well made during the driller's own test, on the 933 reports carrying one in gallons per minute. A test is a few hours; it is not a guarantee of what the well sustained afterwards, and it is not a figure to size a system from without a hydrogeologist.

Decade by decade

Del Norte County is the exception. Its median has held: 40 ft in the 1970s, 60 ft in the 2020s. Every other California county on record here has gone measurably deeper, which is what makes this one worth naming.

• 1970s40 ft157 reports
• 1980s39 ft187 reports
• 1990s46 ft434 reports
• 2000s58 ft282 reports
• 2010s60 ft108 reports
• 2020s60 ft102 reports

What this page cannot tell you

• Not the water table

  A record, not a reading

  The levels above were written down when each well was finished, some of them forty years ago. They describe those wells on those days. Nothing here is a current measurement, and no average of old filings becomes one.

• Not a yield you can plan on

  A test, not a guarantee

  A driller's test runs for hours. Sustained capacity over a season is a different quantity, measured differently, and most wells on record carry no test at all.

• Not a prediction for a parcel

  1,823 wells, one county

  The median describes the whole county. What matters for one property is the nearest wells in the most similar ground, which is the question Beneath exists to answer.

• Not every well

  Filings only

  Wells drilled before reporting, wells never filed and wells filed with a bad location are missing or misplaced. This is what was submitted, not a census of what exists.

Questions about Del Norte County wells

How deep are water wells in Del Norte County, California?

The median water well in Del Norte County, California is 42 feet deep, based on 1,823 completion reports filed with the Department of Water Resources. Eighty per cent finish between 29 and 80 feet. Where drillers recorded the water level, the median was 19 feet below ground, across 145 of those reports. These figures describe wells that were drilled, not what a new well would find.

How deep is the water table in Del Norte County?

The filed reports do not answer that, and the difference matters. What they carry is the static water level each well recorded on the day it was completed — a median of 19 feet below ground across 145 reports in Del Norte County. Those readings span decades and were taken in different places under different conditions, so they describe wells that were drilled, not the water table today. A current level for one property comes from a measured well nearby, not from an average of old filings.

How many gallons per minute does a well in Del Norte County produce?

Where drillers tested and filed a figure — 933 reports — the median was 16 gallons per minute. A driller's test runs for hours, so it says what the well made that day and not what it sustained through a dry summer. Wells with no filed test are absent from that median entirely, which is most of them.

Does this tell me whether there is water under a specific property?

No. A county median describes 1,823 wells spread across the whole county, and the useful comparison for one parcel is the wells nearest it in the most similar ground. That is a different question, and it is the one Beneath answers — by scoring the whole parcel against the records around it and saying where the evidence is too thin to score.

Counties next door

• Humboldt County — 3,650 wells, 100 ft
• Siskiyou County — 8,643 wells, 147 ft
• Trinity County — 3,041 wells, 180 ft
• Shasta County — 12,839 wells, 160 ft
• Tehama County — 13,715 wells, 175 ft
• Mendocino County — 10,936 wells, 140 ft