Well destruction and abandonment

Destroying a well is a county permit

An unused well is not something to fill with dirt and forget. San Diego County and Riverside County both require a permit before a well is destroyed, and both point the construction and destruction standards at the California Department of Water Resources well standards. We pull the pump, file the permit as the licensed contractor, and do the destruction the permit describes. The older guide on this site is well abandonment. Drilling a replacement is well drilling.

San Diego County

San Diego County Code section 67.440 says no person shall construct, repair, reconstruct, or destroy any well unless a written permit has first been obtained from the Director, and unless the work conforms to the chapter and the permit. Section 67.441 says the application includes a plot plan of items within 200 feet (property lines, sewage works, water bodies, drainage, other wells, structures, roads, and easements), the assessor parcel number, the person who will do the work, the proposed depths and casings, the proposed use, and the owner's name. The application is filed with the fee in section 67.441.B. This page does not quote a dollar amount for that fee.

Section 67.442 says construction, reconstruction, repair, and destruction are performed by a contractor licensed under the Contractors' License Law unless that law exempts the person. The county's well FAQ says a permit is required when a water well is proposed to be constructed, modified, reconstructed (including deepened), or destroyed, and that only a California licensed C-57 may submit the application. Read both: the wells chapter and the DEHQ well FAQ.

Section 67.402 defines "California Well Standards, Combined" as the most recent standards the Department of Water Resources has published as final or final draft at the time the permit application is submitted. The same definition says that as of August 2019 those standards were Bulletin 74-81 as modified and supplemented by Final Draft Bulletin 74-90. Section 67.421 says construction, repair, reconstruction, and destruction of water wells follow those combined standards, as amended by the chapter.

"Abandoned," in section 67.402, is a well that has not been used for one year, unless the owner declares in writing an intention to use it again for water or another associated purpose and the Director approves that declaration. The declaration is renewed every year. Test holes and exploratory holes are abandoned 24 hours after construction work is completed, unless the Director approves otherwise.

Riverside County

The Department of Environmental Health wells page says a permit for construction, reconstruction, or destruction is required throughout Riverside County. Ordinance No. 682, as amended through 682.4, Section 3, says no person shall destroy a well that has been used to produce or inject water, a cathodic protection well, a monitoring well, or a geothermal heat exchange well without a written application and a valid permit. The application includes a declaration under penalty of perjury. Fees are the amounts in Ordinance No. 671. The Department's July 2022 land-use fee bulletin (Informational Bulletin No. 99-14-EPO) lists "Well Abandonment (Destruction of Well)" at $199. That bulletin tells you to confirm the current fee with the county. The bulletin PDF is 99-14-EPO.

Section 3.C says someone who starts work that needs a permit, and later gets the permit, pays double the fee. That double fee does not apply to emergency work if the person shows the Director, in writing, that the work was urgently necessary and a permit was not practical first. Emergency work still needs a permit application within three working days, and the work still has to meet Section 10.

A destruction application, Section 3.D.9, asks for the method of destruction, total depth, casing depth and type, perforation depth, the well log, and anything else that shows the groundwater will be protected, when that information is available. Section 10 adopts Department of Water Resources Bulletin 74-81, Chapter II, and Bulletin 74-90, as the state may amend them. Section 13 says the Department is notified at least two working days before the sealing of a well that is being destroyed, and again immediately after the destruction work is finished.

"Abandoned," in Section 2, is a well whose original purpose has been discontinued for one year and that the owner has not declared for reuse, or a well so far out of repair that it cannot do the job the ordinance regulates. Exploration holes are abandoned 24 hours after construction and testing. Section 22 says that if 30 days pass after abandonment, the owner has not declared a proposed reuse, and the Department finds the well is a hazard to groundwater or to public health and safety, the Department directs the owner to destroy it under Section 10. When the pump is removed, the casing gets a threaded or equivalently secured watertight cap and is kept from being a hazard until it is destroyed. The ordinance PDF is Ordinance 682.4.

We do not publish a grout recipe here. The seal is whatever the permit and the adopted well standards require on that well.

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