What to Expect from a Well in Rio Blanco County

How deep are wells around Rio Blanco County?

How much water do wells make near Rio Blanco County?

An 80-Foot Median, but a Wide Drilling Range

Of the 1,413 wells reporting depth, 54% are under 100 feet. Another 27% fall between 100-300 feet, while 8% are 300-600 feet and 11% are 600 feet or deeper. The 90th-percentile depth is 697 feet. A bid based only on the 80-foot median can miss substantial deeper-ground exposure.

The ground is mixed sedimentary and alluvial. Most permits carry an unnamed or fractured-bedrock aquifer label; 102 name Alluvial and 11 name Uinta. Those broad labels do not establish what lies beneath a particular parcel. Ask the driller to compare nearby completion logs and explain how the 34-230-foot middle range affects the estimate and extra-depth charges.

Reported Yields Favor Household Supply, Not Guarantees

The median reported pump yield is 12.5 gpm, with the middle half at 7.0-15.0 gpm. That is encouraging for household supply, but only 290 wells report yield. The sample also includes nonhousehold uses: domestic/household permits account for 37% of county records, stock for 18%, irrigation for 13% and monitoring for 17%.

Among reported yields, 2% are under 1 gpm and 10% are in the 1-5 gpm band. A low-producing well may need storage and careful demand planning. A recorded pump yield is not a guarantee of sustained delivery today. Before buying, request a current pumping and recovery test rather than relying on the permit’s original figure.

Water Often Stands Shallow, Without a Clear Decline

Static water level means the depth to standing water when the well is not pumping, not the depth of the drilled hole. Across 217 reported measurements, the median is 20 feet below ground, and the middle half is 6-58 feet. A deeper well can still have water standing relatively close to the surface.

Decade medians move from 40 feet in the 1960s to 10 in the 1970s, 28 in the 1990s, 13 in the 2000s, 24 in the 2010s and 18 in the 2020s. This series does not show a steady decline. These are different groups of measurements, not repeated readings from a single monitoring network, so they cannot establish a parcel-level trend.

What Rio Blanco’s Permit History Tells You

Permit issuance rose from 203 in the 1970s to 323 in the 1990s, 624 in the 2000s and 810 in the 2010s. The 2020s account for 438 permits, with the newest dated 2025. That is an incomplete decade, and issuance does not necessarily mean a well was completed.

Prominent driller-field entries include Water Pump Supply & Service (Day, Travis), with 237 records, and Water Pump Supply And Service (Day, Winfred C.), with 145. The largest listed entry, Authorized (Pe, Pg), has 290 records but is not a clear business name. Treat these as historical record labels, not confirmation of current availability or licensing.

Budget Beyond the Hole in Meeker or Rangely

The local cost model uses $50-$75 per foot for mixed sedimentary and alluvial ground. At the county’s 80-foot median, that puts the drilled hole around $4,000-$6,000. A finished well with pump, tank, trenching and electrical is modeled at $10,000-$18,000.

Those figures are a planning allowance, not a parcel quote. With the middle half of reported depths spanning 34-230 feet, depth alone can change the job substantially. Get a written scope identifying casing, grout, development, testing and the route to the house. Confirm what is included in the per-foot price and what happens if the initial target does not produce usable water.

Check Water Quality and Keep the Site Buildable

The surrounding mapped inventory includes 224 PFAS sampling/contamination sites, 12 historic mine features and 2 EPA Superfund/cleanup sites within about 10 miles. These map counts do not establish contamination in an individual well. Review each relevant site’s status and location, then use a certified laboratory and local health guidance to choose testing for the property.

Inspect the wellhead, casing condition and surface drainage as well as the water itself. A producing well can still have water-quality problems. For a new build, resolve well and septic placement, approved separation requirements, drilling access and the house footprint together. Do not leave septic feasibility until after the well and driveway locations are fixed.

Before Closing on a Rio Blanco County Lot

Start with neighboring completion records around the actual parcel, not just the county median or a listing’s claim that water is available. Meeker and Rangely have their own local pages for a closer comparison. Garfield County and Moffat County provide regional context, but nearby wells in comparable ground are more useful than a distant county average.

Verify the DWR permit, permitted uses and well location. Do not assume household authorization includes irrigation or stock watering. On an existing well, obtain pumping, recovery and water-quality results. On vacant land, make the purchase decision with a drilling scope, a contingency for inadequate production and a workable septic and access plan.

Well permits by decade near Rio Blanco County

What a new well costs in Rio Blanco County

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 (230 ft) would run roughly $17,500–$29,250. 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 Rio Blanco County? 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 Rio Blanco County 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 Rio Blanco County

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