Well Drilling in Garrett County, MD

• Coverage includes Oakland, Mountain Lake Park, Loch Lynn Heights, Deer Park, Accident, McHenry and the Deep Creek Lake area, Swanton, Grantsville, Friendsville, Bittinger, Finzel and Kitzmiller.
• Well permits go through the Garrett County Health Department's Environmental Health office, which the county lists as the approving agency for wells and septic.
• Winter access on ridge roads and steep driveways can delay rig moves, so schedule new wells for the drier months where you can.

• New drilled wells for homes and lake lots
• Replacement wells where an old well is low-yield
• Submersible pump and pressure tank replacement
• Methane and water-quality testing on coal-basin wells
• Well plugging when a home connects to public water
• Certificate of potability sampling for new wells

• Method: our calculator's sedimentary-rock row, $35–$55 per foot, plus about $1,500–$4,500 for the permit, pump and pressure tank, applied to the USGS median depth. That's an estimate, not a quote.
• Typical new well: at the USGS inventory median of about 132 ft, the calculator gives $6,120–$11,760. At the 75th percentile (200 ft) it gives $8,500–$15,500, and a shallow 85-ft well (25th percentile) comes to $4,475–$9,175.
• Permit fee: Maryland's Environment Article § 9-1307 lets a county board of health charge a well permit fee of no more than $160 per well; ask Garrett County's Environmental Health office for its current amount.
• Formation: USGS records put Hampshire Formation wells at a median of about 156 ft, deeper than Conemaugh wells at about 122 ft, so ask which formation a driller expects on your lot.

• Step 1, apply through the driller: MDE's permit guide says the well construction permit under COMAR 26.04.04 is obtained by the licensed well driller from the local health department, and the site must be inspected before the permit is issued.
• Step 2, know the fee and term: Environment Article § 9-1307 caps the county fee at $160 per well, and the permit is valid for 12 months from issue.
• Step 3, drill and log: the driller files a well completion report, which is how the permit number ties to the depth and yield on record.
• Step 4, potability: MDE's guide says a certificate of potability, based on water sampling, must be issued by the local approving authority before a new well goes into service.
• Garrett County Environmental Health can be reached at 301-334-7760 for well and septic questions.

• Coal basins: MGS describes the Pennsylvanian Conemaugh Formation as sandstone, shale, siltstone, clay and coal seams, with well yields from 1 to 200 gpm and a median yield of 7 gpm.
• Anticlines: in the Deer Park and Accident anticlines, MGS lists the Pocono sandstone (median yield 7.5 gpm) and the Hampshire shale and sandstone (median yield 8 gpm) as important aquifers, with many springs and wells.
• USGS inventory records show medians by formation: Conemaugh about 122 ft (355 wells), Hampshire about 156 ft (230 wells), Jennings about 120 ft (204 wells) and Pocono about 119 ft (162 wells).
• Methane: in MGS's 2012-2013 sampling of 77 wells across Maryland's Appalachian Plateau, 20 of 35 wells in coal basins (57 percent) had methane detections, compared with 14 of 42 (33 percent) outside them, and valley wells had more detections than hillside ones.
• Flank aquifers: MGS rates the Pottsville sandstone as a moderately important aquifer along the flanks of the coal basins, and the Mauch Chunk and Greenbrier formations as moderately important aquifers along the flanks of the anticlines.
• Gas fields: MGS found no sign of migration in three wells near the Accident Dome gas storage field, but recommended more sampling there, so a baseline test is worth having.

Oakland · Mountain Lake Park · Loch Lynn Heights · Deer Park · Accident · McHenry · Swanton · Grantsville · Friendsville · Bittinger · Finzel · Kitzmiller