Well Drilling in Grand Traverse County, MI

• Coverage includes Old Mission Peninsula, Acme, Williamsburg, Interlochen, Kingsley, Fife Lake, Buckley, Grawn and the townships around Traverse City.
• Crews work along US 31, Highway 72 (M-72), Highway 37 (M-37) and Highway 113 (M-113) between the bay and the southern townships.
• Other Michigan counties on this site: Alpena County, Kent County and Chippewa County.

• New domestic wells on township and orchard lots
• Deep wells through thick glacial drift
• Pump and pressure tank replacement
• Wells for small public systems (Type II), which carry a higher fee
• Water sampling for sales, refinancing and new wells
• Plugging old wells when a home connects to city water

• Local depth: at the Wellogic median of about 106 ft, the site calculator's formula gives $4,150–$11,390 for a complete well. At the 75th percentile (about 160 ft) it gives $5,500–$14,900, and at the 90th (about 222 ft) $7,050–$18,930. The site calculator's method is depth × $25–$65 per foot, plus permit $200–$500, pump $900–$2,500 and tank $400–$1,500. It is an estimate, not a quote.
• Permit: the county's 2026 schedule lists $240 for a private or Type III well and $600 for a Type II well, and says work done before the permit is charged double.
• Water sampling: the county's 2026 schedule lists $160 for water sample collection, a common add-on for a new well or a sale.
• Thick drift means long screens and careful development in sand; on the moraines, a driller may pass dry layers before finding a good sand and gravel aquifer.

• Step 1, apply: file through EPIC GT with the Grand Traverse County Health Department; the 2026 schedule lists $240 for a private or Type III well.
• Step 2, penalties: the county's schedule says work started without a permit is charged double the fee.
• Step 3, siting: Michigan Rule 325.1622 sets 50 feet from a septic tank, a subsurface disposal field and a buried sewer, and 10 feet from a watertight gravity sewer or a lake or stream.
• Step 4, sales: the county's time-of-transfer program, since January 2026, requires an evaluation for homes within 300 feet of surface water.
• Step 5, records: the driller files the well record with EGLE, where it joins the Wellogic database.

• Deep glacial drift: Grand Traverse County sits on hundreds of feet of glacial sand, gravel and till from moraines and outwash plains; bedrock lies far below, and household wells finish in the glacial aquifer. The glacial aquifer is the main water source across the county, groundwater moves through sand layers between till beds, and bedrock lies below the drift along the whole Grand Traverse Bay corridor, beneath the Antrim shale formation.
• Reading the log: north of the county, along the bays and on Old Mission Peninsula, wells pass through sand and clay layers of the glacial drift to reach water; south, toward Kingsley and Fife Lake, outwash plains of sand and gravel form a broad aquifer zone where water levels can be deep. The till layer on the moraines varies, and the Antrim shale bedrock is too deep for most household wells.
• EGLE Wellogic well records (n=22,311 household wells with depth): 25th percentile about 72 ft, median about 106 ft, 75th percentile about 160 ft, 90th about 222 ft. USGS site records (205 wells) give a similar median near 100 ft.
• Census ACS counts about 47,003 housing units with a median year built of 1986.

Old Mission · Acme · Williamsburg · Interlochen · Kingsley · Fife Lake · Buckley · Grawn