Well Drilling in Jones County, MS: Depth, Cost & Rules

Local Help in Jones County, MS

Jones County is in the Pine Belt of south Mississippi, with Laurel and Ellisville at its center. Rural water associations serve many roads, but homes and farms around Soso, Sandersville, Moselle, Ovett, Sharon and Calhoun still drill their own wells.

USGS site records list 1,248 Jones County wells with a reported depth, a large sample; the median is about 189 feet, and 969 of the records are coded to the Catahoula Formation's sands.

Jones County Service Details

What providers in this area actually see: coverage, common jobs, local pricing factors, and rules worth knowing.

Service Area Notes

Coverage includes Laurel, Ellisville, Soso, Sandersville, Moselle, Ovett, Sharon and Calhoun.
Crews work along I-59, US 84, US 11 and MS 15 and MS 29.
MDEQ licenses water well contractors statewide.
Before you call: know whether a rural water association line runs on your road, and whether the well will serve a poultry house or livestock, since that changes setbacks.

Common Jobs in Jones County

New domestic wells into Catahoula sands
Replacement wells for old, shallow wells
Pump and tank work
Wells for poultry houses and livestock
Bacteria testing
Plugging abandoned wells

What Drives Pricing Here

Local depth: at the USGS median of about 189 ft, the site calculator's formula gives $6,225–$16,785 for a complete well. At the 75th percentile (about 326 ft) it gives $9,650–$25,690, and at the 90th (about 500 ft) $14,000–$37,000. 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.
Screened sand wells: Catahoula wells finish in sand with a screen, so screen length and development time are line items.
Setbacks from poultry houses: MSU Extension lists 50 feet from an animal building and 100 feet from a feedlot over 300 animal units, and double those distances for a sensitive well with less than 50 feet of casing.
Permit costs are low because a single-household domestic well generally doesn't need an MDEQ withdrawal permit.

Permits & Local Rules

Step 1, permit: MDEQ's groundwater rules (11 Miss. Code R. 7-1.4) generally don't require a withdrawal permit for a well serving one household.
Step 2, contractor: 11 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 7, Ch. 2 requires a licensed water well contractor; an owner may drill a well for their own permanent residence, but a licensed contractor supervises key steps.
Step 3, siting: MSU Extension Publication 3319, citing Miss. Code Ann. § 41-67-7, lists 50 feet from a septic tank and 100 feet from a drainfield.
Step 4, construction: the driller sets casing and grout to state standards and files the well record.
Step 5, testing: sample for bacteria after drilling and after any flooding. With no state permit fee for a single-household well, the site calculator's $200–$500 permit line mostly covers the driller's paperwork and the well record.

Geology & Water Table Notes

Catahoula sands: USGS site records code 969 Jones County wells to the Catahoula Formation, Miocene-age sand and clay of the coastal plain that dips south toward the Gulf.
Reading the log: the Catahoula Formation is the main aquifer under most of the county, sand beds separated by clay layers that dip to the south; north of Laurel, wells may reach older formations of the Vicksburg and Forest Hill aquifer zone, and along the Leaf River and Tallahala Creek, shallow alluvium holds water close to the surface but is more exposed to runoff.
USGS site records (n=1,248 with depth): 25th percentile about 93 ft, median about 189 ft, 75th percentile about 326 ft, 90th about 500 ft.
Sensitive wells: MSU Extension says a well with less than 50 feet of watertight casing, not cased through 10 feet of clay, must keep twice the listed distances.
Census ACS counts about 28,826 housing units with a median year built of 1981.