Is there a well on this Kansas land — and is it your problem now?
Type the WWC-5 record number, the county, or the drilling contractor. 314,779 records, and the answer starts with the part that costs money: whether anyone ever told the State the well was sealed.
Screening a list of parcels? Pro access resolves them in bulk, and the datasets are published with their prices — from USD 300 a month for the stream of changes.
An abandoned well is the landowner’s problem, not the previous owner’s
That is the part people find out late. Under K.A.R. 28-30-7 every abandoned water well in Kansas must be plugged, and the duty falls on the owner of the land — it travels with the deed. « Abandoned » is defined by use: a well not used for two years, or one in such disrepair that it cannot be used.
65,264 records on this register carry a plugging report on form WWC-5P. 249,515 do not, and 89,374 of those were completed before 1995.
Read that carefully, because this site will not overstate it: the absence of a plugging report is not proof that a well is abandoned. Nothing in this register tracks whether a well is used. It is proof that the State has never been told the well was sealed — which is exactly the thing to check before you buy the land. What to do about it, and who pays.
How deep you have to drill is not the same everywhere
County medians on this register run from 16 feet to 453 feet. Depth is what a well costs, because a driller charges by the foot.
| County | Median depth (ft) | Median yield (gpm) | Records measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haskell | 453 | 352 | 2,286 |
| Grant | 403 | 90 | 1,569 |
| Stanton | 400 | 120 | 1,056 |
| Stevens | 380 | 100 | 2,585 |
| Seward | 280 | 75 | 2,984 |
| Kearny | 262 | 404 | 2,138 |
| Meade | 240 | 60 | 2,314 |
| Morton | 240 | 60 | 1,195 |
| Finney | 237 | 150 | 5,450 |
| Sherman | 224.74 | 50 | 1,436 |
| Gray | 221 | 125 | 3,045 |
| Thomas | 180 | 60 | 2,762 |
| Wichita | 171 | 50 | 1,023 |
| Sheridan | 160 | 50 | 2,046 |
Depth and yield in all 104 counties with enough records to measure.
What the water is allowed to be used for
| Water use | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring well/observation/piezometer | 85,904 | 27.3% |
| Domestic | 77,399 | 24.6% |
| Domestic, Lawn and Garden | 54,905 | 17.4% |
| Irrigation | 24,315 | 7.7% |
| Oil Field Water Supply | 18,464 | 5.9% |
| Domestic, Livestock | 17,552 | 5.6% |
| Dewatering | 6,212 | 2.0% |
| Environmental Remediation, Air Sparge | 4,767 | 1.5% |
| Environmental Remediation, Soil Vapor Extraction | 3,980 | 1.3% |
| Public Water Supply | 2,710 | 0.9% |
| (unstated)/abandoned | 2,629 | 0.8% |
| Geothermal, Closed Loop, Vertical | 2,001 | 0.6% |
| Environmental Remediation, Injection | 1,827 | 0.6% |
| Test hole/well | 1,726 | 0.5% |
| Heat Pump (Closed Loop/Disposal), Geothermal | 1,583 | 0.5% |
Who drilled it
4,491 licensed contractors appear on the register. Which one drilled a well, where they work and at what depths is on the record — and it is the closest thing to a reference anyone comparing quotes can get from a public file. It is not a rating: nothing here measures quality.
| Contractor | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Harp Well & Pump Service, INC | 26,796 | 8.5% |
| Rosencrantz-bemis Enterprises, INC | 12,889 | 4.1% |
| Kelly's Water Well Service, INC | 9,072 | 2.9% |
| Miller Drilling | 8,032 | 2.6% |
| Geocore Services INC | 7,792 | 2.5% |
| Associated Environmental, INC | 7,093 | 2.3% |
| Larsen and Associates, INC | 6,122 | 1.9% |
| Clarke Well and Equipment, INC | 5,814 | 1.8% |
| Jay C. Woofter Pump & Well, INC | 5,415 | 1.7% |
| Geotechnical Services, INC | 5,346 | 1.7% |
| Well Owner | 5,075 | 1.6% |
| Chase Drilling | 4,781 | 1.5% |
| Geocore, INC | 4,477 | 1.4% |
| Strader Drilling Co., INC | 4,345 | 1.4% |
What none of it measures
Depth is reported on 100% of records, static water level on 85%, yield on 34%. A blank is not a zero. And every figure describes the well on the day it was drilled — water levels move, wells silt up, and nothing here is updated when they do. A WWC-5 describes a well on the day it was drilled. It says nothing about whether the water is safe to drink, whether the well still produces, or what condition it is in today.
Where they are
| County | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Sedgwick | 74,710 | 23.7% |
| Reno | 18,579 | 5.9% |
| Barton | 8,264 | 2.6% |
| Butler | 8,187 | 2.6% |
| Saline | 7,612 | 2.4% |
| Harvey | 7,116 | 2.3% |
| Stafford | 6,530 | 2.1% |
| Mcpherson | 6,180 | 2.0% |
| Wyandotte | 6,002 | 1.9% |
| Johnson | 5,602 | 1.8% |
| Ellis | 5,546 | 1.8% |
| Finney | 5,476 | 1.7% |
| Pratt | 5,098 | 1.6% |
| Ford | 4,946 | 1.6% |
| Shawnee | 4,748 | 1.5% |
| Rice | 4,156 | 1.3% |
| Sumner | 3,912 | 1.2% |
| Edwards | 3,879 | 1.2% |
| Kingman | 3,776 | 1.2% |
| Dickinson | 3,662 | 1.2% |
All 100 counties · Abandoned wells · Water uses · Drillers · How this site is built