Water wells in Sierra County.

What the completion reports say

• Median depth

  175 ft

  The middle of 566 completion reports for newly drilled water-supply wells. Half were finished shallower, half deeper.

• Eighty per cent finish between

  90–420 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

  809 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

  40 ft

  How deep the water stood when the well was finished, on the 179 reports that recorded it — 32% 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

  20 GPM

  What the well made during the driller's own test, on the 219 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: 140 ft in the 1970s, 200 ft in the 2010s. 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.

• 1970s140 ft78 reports
• 1980s175 ft125 reports
• 1990s180 ft101 reports
• 2000s206 ft127 reports
• 2010s200 ft75 reports
• 2020s—24 reports — too few for a median

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

  566 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 Sierra County wells

How deep are water wells in Sierra County, California?

The median water well in Sierra County, California is 175 feet deep, based on 566 completion reports filed with the Department of Water Resources. Eighty per cent finish between 90 and 420 feet. Where drillers recorded the water level, the median was 40 feet below ground, across 179 of those reports. These figures describe wells that were drilled, not what a new well would find.

How deep is the water table in Sierra 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 40 feet below ground across 179 reports in Sierra 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 Sierra County produce?

Where drillers tested and filed a figure — 219 reports — the median was 20 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 Sierra County getting deeper?

On the filed record, yes: a median of 140 feet in the 1970s against 200 feet in the 2010s. Sierra 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 566 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

• Plumas County — 6,710 wells, 150 ft
• Nevada County — 19,782 wells, 200 ft
• Yuba County — 6,759 wells, 200 ft
• Placer County — 14,978 wells, 200 ft
• El Dorado County — 14,540 wells, 250 ft
• Butte County — 16,687 wells, 165 ft