Water wells in Fresno County.

What the completion reports say

• Median depth

  205 ft

  The middle of 34,423 completion reports for newly drilled water-supply wells. Half were finished shallower, half deeper.

• Eighty per cent finish between

  103–530 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

  3,130 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

  71 ft

  How deep the water stood when the well was finished, on the 9,558 reports that recorded it — 28% 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

  60 GPM

  What the well made during the driller's own test, on the 14,844 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

Wells here have been finished deeper decade by decade: 180 ft in the 1970s, 360 ft in the 2020s — 2.0× the depth. That is what the filings show for the county as a whole. Completion depth follows where and why people drill as much as it follows a water table, so this describes the record rather than explaining it.

• 1970s180 ft7,348 reports
• 1980s185 ft5,145 reports
• 1990s220 ft5,686 reports
• 2000s250 ft3,510 reports
• 2010s333 ft3,419 reports
• 2020s360 ft2,852 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

  34,423 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 Fresno County wells

How deep are water wells in Fresno County, California?

The median water well in Fresno County, California is 205 feet deep, based on 34,423 completion reports filed with the Department of Water Resources. Eighty per cent finish between 103 and 530 feet. Where drillers recorded the water level, the median was 71 feet below ground, across 9,558 of those reports. These figures describe wells that were drilled, not what a new well would find.

How deep is the water table in Fresno 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 71 feet below ground across 9,558 reports in Fresno 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 Fresno County produce?

Where drillers tested and filed a figure — 14,844 reports — the median was 60 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.

Are wells in Fresno County getting deeper?

On the filed record, yes: a median of 180 feet in the 1970s against 360 feet in the 2020s. Fresno is not unusual in this — 54 of the 55 California counties with enough reports to compare show the same direction. What the record cannot say is why: deeper completions follow where people drill and what they are drilling for, as well as what is happening underground.

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

No. A county median describes 34,423 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

• Kings County — 6,465 wells, 287 ft
• Madera County — 15,036 wells, 400 ft
• Tulare County — 19,110 wells, 270 ft
• Mariposa County — 6,000 wells, 220 ft
• Merced County — 11,568 wells, 215 ft
• Inyo County — 1,323 wells, 160 ft