Water wells in Los Angeles County.

What the completion reports say

• Median depth

  372 ft

  The middle of 6,991 completion reports for newly drilled water-supply wells. Half were finished shallower, half deeper.

• Eighty per cent finish between

  143–800 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

  2,500 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

  123 ft

  How deep the water stood when the well was finished, on the 1,901 reports that recorded it — 27% 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

  26 GPM

  What the well made during the driller's own test, on the 5,252 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: 337 ft in the 1970s, 440 ft in the 2020s. 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.

• 1970s337 ft603 reports
• 1980s345 ft1,759 reports
• 1990s400 ft953 reports
• 2000s405 ft1,025 reports
• 2010s410 ft389 reports
• 2020s440 ft244 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

  6,991 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 Los Angeles County wells

How deep are water wells in Los Angeles County, California?

The median water well in Los Angeles County, California is 372 feet deep, based on 6,991 completion reports filed with the Department of Water Resources. Eighty per cent finish between 143 and 800 feet. Where drillers recorded the water level, the median was 123 feet below ground, across 1,901 of those reports. These figures describe wells that were drilled, not what a new well would find.

How deep is the water table in Los Angeles 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 123 feet below ground across 1,901 reports in Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles County produce?

Where drillers tested and filed a figure — 5,252 reports — the median was 26 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 Los Angeles County getting deeper?

On the filed record, yes: a median of 337 feet in the 1970s against 440 feet in the 2020s. Los Angeles 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 6,991 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

• Ventura County — 3,584 wells, 360 ft
• Orange County — 1,262 wells, 300 ft
• San Bernardino County — 15,344 wells, 262 ft
• Kern County — 13,486 wells, 400 ft
• Riverside County — 20,857 wells, 300 ft
• Santa Barbara County — 6,080 wells, 390 ft