Winkler County Has No Groundwater Conservation District

About two out of every three Texas counties sit inside a groundwater conservation district, a local body that can cap how much water you pump from underground and can make you get a permit before you drill. Winkler County isn't one of them. There's no district office to phone, no local pumping rules to clear, and a lot less local data on how the water table is doing.

The state floor still holds, district or no district. A licensed driller has to file a well report through the shared TWRSRS system, run by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, within 30 days of finishing the well. Older well logs and water records live with the Texas Water Development Board, and you can pull them up by county.

Rain won't carry you out here. Winkler County averages only about 13 inches a year, so a well is the whole game. Anyone buying land or planning to build should find out how deep the good water sits and how it tests before money changes hands. The Water Development Board's well records will tell you what neighbors hit, and how far down they had to go to hit it.