Methodology & sources

Every number on this site is computed from public records. This page shows the work.

Source data

All well records come from the drillers logs North Dakota well contractors file with the Department of Water Resources (www.dwr.nd.gov). We refresh our copy weekly from the state's public data service. (51,990 well records at last refresh, 2026-08-25.)

Filters

• ND DWR drillers logs, water wells only (test holes, monitoring, dewatering, recovery and cathodic-protection records excluded)
• Static water level statistics use measurements 0–2,000 ft below ground surface; zero/blank values are treated as missing
• Yield statistics use reported flows/pump tests 0–5,000 gpm
• Records without a resolvable county are excluded from county pages
• Counties with fewer than 10 records are not published

Statistics

We report medians and interquartile ranges (25th–75th percentile) rather than averages, because well data is heavily skewed — a few very deep wells would distort an average. "Recent" figures cover wells completed since 2016. Driller tables count wells by the driller on logs filed since 2016.

Cost estimates

We publish no cost estimate for North Dakota, and that is deliberate. A drilling cost range is only worth reading if it is anchored to how deep wells around you actually go — and ND DWR does not publish depth as data. It is written on each driller's filed log, which we link per well, but there is no depth column anywhere in the file, so there is nothing honest to compute a local number from. A national per-foot range multiplied by a depth we do not have would look like a local estimate and would not be one. We would rather link you to the drillers working your county.

Known data limitations

• Location accuracy varies by record: North Dakota records no street address for a well — location comes from the PLSS site description on the driller's log — so results show the wells around a location rather than a single wellhead.
• Not every well is on record — older and hand-dug wells are under-represented.
• Some records contain filing errors; we propagate the official record as filed.

Corrections

If a number here looks wrong, email us (or reply to any report). Confirmed errors are corrected and logged on the changelog. In this niche one wrong number costs more trust than ten missing features — we'd rather show less and be right.

About

North Dakota Well Data is an independent data publisher. We are not affiliated with ND DWR, the State of North Dakota, or any drilling company. Revenue comes from property reports and from connecting homeowners with licensed local drillers — never from selling rankings or placements in the statistics.