La Junta Gardens, Colorado Well Guide

How deep are wells around La Junta Gardens?

How much water do wells make near La Junta Gardens?

La Junta Gardens well depths vary sharply

Depth records near La Junta Gardens are concentrated at the shallow end: 72% are under 100 feet. Still, 16% fall between 300 and 600 feet, and 11% are 600 feet or deeper. Only 1% are between 100 and 300 feet, which shows that the local pattern is not a smooth progression from shallow to deep.

The median depth is 40 feet, with a middle-half range of 32 to 435 feet. For a driller's bid, that range is more useful than the median alone. A nearby shallow alluvial well may be reasonably priced, while a lot with different subsurface conditions could require a much deeper hole. Review wells closest to the parcel, not just the community-wide median.

Permits name unnamed or fractured-bedrock aquifers most often, followed by the Dakota and Cheyenne aquifers. No Denver Basin aquifer wells appear in these records.

Reported well yields are generally strong, but verify the lot

Only 88 wells report a pump yield, so the yield statistics are not a complete reading of every permitted well. Among those records, the median is 21.0 gallons per minute, with the middle half from 12.0 to 125.0 gallons per minute. That is a broad spread and should not be treated as a promise for an untested parcel.

Sixty-nine percent of reported wells produce 15 or more gallons per minute. Thirty percent fall between 5 and 15 gallons per minute, and 1% are between 1 and 5 gallons per minute. No reported well is under 1 gallon per minute. A buyer should still ask for the well test, pump information, and the permitted use.

Domestic and household wells make up 39% of the use mix. Stock wells account for 15%, irrigation 20%, and monitoring 18%. A high-yield irrigation record may not represent a household well on your property.

The water-level records are limited, not a trend line

Twenty-seven wells report a static water level. The median depth to water is 18 feet, and the middle half runs from 13 to 36 feet. Those figures indicate relatively shallow measured water levels in the available records, but they do not establish the water level at every lot.

The permit totals by decade show activity in the area, including 73 permits in the 1950s, 67 in the 1960s, 57 in the 1970s, 50 in the 1980s, 205 in the 1990s, 146 in the 2000s, 41 in the 2010s, and 36 in the 2020s. Permit volume is not the same as groundwater-level monitoring. The available facts do not show a reliable decade-by-decade decline or rise in the water table.

Before buying, obtain the well construction record and any recent static-level or pumping information for the specific property.

La Junta Gardens has a long permit history

The records include 977 permitted wells within the mapped area, with 694 recorded as constructed. Of those, 661 report a total depth, 88 report a pump yield, and 27 report a static water level. The newest permit year is 2025, so the area is still represented by current permitting activity.

The most active drillers named in the records are Authorized (Pe, Pg), with 92 records; Hoffman, Earl, with 78; and Crandall, H A, with 62. These names describe historical permit records, not a recommendation or proof that a company is available for a new project.

Use the Colorado DWR permit file to confirm the approved use, location, construction details, and any restrictions. A domestic-use permit is not interchangeable with an irrigation or stock permit.

What a new well can cost near La Junta Gardens

For the local alluvium and plains sedimentary rock, the drilling model uses a typical rate of $35 to $55 per foot. At the 40-foot median depth, the drilled hole works out to about $1,400 to $2,200. That is the hole only, not the complete water system.

A finished well with pump, pressure tank, trenching, and electrical is modeled at about $7,400 to $14,200 at the median depth. A deeper-than-median hole can push the project above that range, and difficult access, casing, grout, water treatment, or unusual electrical work can also change a bid.

Ask contractors to separate drilling, casing and grout, pump equipment, testing, trenching, electrical service, and permits. Comparing itemized bids is important here because the recorded depth distribution is unusually wide.

Check water quality, dry-hole risk, and the building site

Mapped environmental information deserves review before closing. Within about 10 miles, the records show 19 PFAS sampling or contamination sites, 10 historic mine features, and 9 EPA Superfund or cleanup sites. These sites do not prove that a particular well is contaminated, but they are a reason to test the water and check the well's position relative to known concerns.

Low yield and dry holes remain site-specific risks even where reported yields look favorable. Fractured-bedrock conditions can be unpredictable, and a neighbor's result may not repeat across a parcel. Confirm the well permit, construction record, production test, and laboratory water test.

For building, plan the well, septic system, driveway, equipment access, and house location together. Confirm setbacks, drainage, easements, and the legal water use before excavation. Colorado's exempt household-use rules and the 35-gallon-per-minute exempt-well pumping limit do not eliminate the need to verify the permit and basin requirements.

Buying or building on a La Junta Gardens lot

Start with the closest permitted wells, especially those in La Junta and North La Junta, both about 2 miles away, and compare them with records near Swink, about 4 miles away. Cheraw is about 8 miles away, Rocky Ford about 10 miles, and Sugar City about 17 miles; those areas can provide context, but distance reduces their value as direct analogs.

For an existing home, verify that the well serves the residence legally, inspect the pump and pressure system, and request recent water testing. For vacant land, make the well location and construction plan part of due diligence before committing to a house footprint or septic layout.

Get a driller's site-specific opinion rather than budgeting from the 40-foot median alone. The 32-to-435-foot middle-half range is the clearest warning that neighboring records can produce very different construction costs.

Well permits by decade near La Junta Gardens

What a new well costs in La Junta Gardens, CO

How this is built: the median permitted depth here times the per-foot range for this ground, plus the normal system costs. A lot at the 75th-percentile depth (435 ft) would run roughly $21,225–$35,925. See the full Colorado well cost guide.

Environmental sites mapped within about 10 miles

Counts come from EPA, USGS and state datasets layered on the Colorado Well Finder map. A count is not a verdict on any one well; it tells you what to test for.

Buying land near La Junta Gardens? Know what it costs to build before you buy the dirt.

A listing photo can't tell you whether a lot is a dream or a money pit. Two parcels near La Junta Gardens can carry the same asking price while one needs an $80,000 driveway and a $45,000 engineered septic the other doesn't. The well numbers on this page are the start of that answer. A Tri-Lakes Site Feasibility Report is the rest of it: a licensed general contractor, excavator and septic installer reads the parcel the way we would if we were about to build on it, and puts the real cost in writing before your money is committed.

Spend a little to know. Or gamble a lot to guess. Realtors sell the view and inspectors look at houses that already exist. We're the people who'd build it, so we catch what quietly turns a "great deal" into a budget disaster: bad access, buried rock, steep grade, soil that won't pass for a normal septic, water that's a fortune to reach. And if the lot is good, you've already got a builder ready to do the work, driveway to drywall.

• Instant Online Report, $99 — type the address and get a buildability read on the spot: parcel, terrain and slope, soil and septic outlook. Cheap enough to run on every lot you're shopping.
• Desktop Report, $500 — a contractor's from-the-desk feasibility read: Regulation 43 and county code, GIS parcel data, terrain, flood and drainage, soil and septic viability, setbacks and buildable envelope, nearby well depths from our 591,000-well database, the likely driveway route, and a preliminary site-development cost breakdown.
• On-Site Report, $2,000 — everything above, then boots and a drone on the actual ground: house pad and septic zone located, access and winter conditions checked, rock and soil observed in person, a 15 to 20 page written opinion you can hand a lender or seller. Credited toward your project if you build with us.

Under contract, comparing parcels, or a realtor with a rural listing whose buyers keep asking "what will it cost to build here?" This is the due-diligence step almost everyone skips, and the one that saves the most.

Common questions about wells in La Junta Gardens

Keep researching

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All wells in Otero County — county-wide depth, yield and cost figures.

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