Well Drilling in LaGrange County, IN

• Requests are taken from anywhere in the county. The Census Bureau lists four incorporated towns with LaGrange County territory (Lagrange, as the Bureau spells it, plus Shipshewana, Topeka and Wolcottville, which also extends into Noble County) and one census-designated place, Howe.
• Researching an existing well: the Division of Water's Water Rights and Use Section holds records for more than 400,000 Indiana water wells, about 138,000 of them field verified. Its online database cannot be searched by owner name, but the water well records viewer offers a street address and ZIP code search. Under IC 25-39-4-10, the department keeps a well record confidential for one year when the well owner or the licensee applies in writing.
• Checking a contractor: DNR lists drilling and pump service contractors whose drillers and pump installers hold a license for the current year, says it does not recommend particular contractors, and asks people to contact the Division of Water to confirm an individual's license status. IC 25-39-3-1 requires a licensee who is operating drilling equipment or installing a pump to carry the license and present it when a department representative asks.

• New household wells drilled, cased and grouted to 312 IAC 13
• Screened wells in glacial sand and gravel; 312 IAC 13-4-2 requires a well screen on wells drilled in an unconsolidated formation, other than monitoring and dewatering wells
• Yield tests: a well that will get a pump is developed and test pumped at capacity for at least one hour, with yield and drawdown recorded (312 IAC 13-7-1)
• Disinfecting a new well with chlorine at 100 parts per million or more under 312 IAC 13-9
• Pump installation and repair, which IC 25-39 reserves for licensed water well pump installers apart from its personal-use and supervised-worker exceptions
• Capping wells left unused for more than three months, and plugging abandoned ones

• Which sand and gravel layer the well reaches: DNR's county summary describes the Natural Lakes and Moraines Aquifer System as having near-surface sand and gravel 10 to 50 feet thick, typically within 100 feet of the ground, over deeper lenses at 100 feet or more, and says most wells in that system are completed at depths shallower than those deeper aquifers. In the Kendallville Aquifer System the depth to a productive aquifer is usually at least 90 feet and can exceed 200 feet where the clays are thick. These are system-wide descriptions drawn from a 1987 basin study, not a forecast for any one parcel.
• On the site calculator: your depth is multiplied by a per-foot band that varies with the chosen geology, then pump, pressure-tank and generic permit amounts are added; those amounts come from national cost pages published by Angi, HomeGuide and HomeAdvisor. The total is a ballpark, not a quote for a LaGrange County job, and because the county health department says no residential well permit is required, confirm with the driller whether any permit or fee is part of the price.
• Casing and grout: 312 IAC 13-6-1 (rotary and augered wells) and 13-6-3 (cable tool and jetted wells), neither of which covers monitoring, dewatering or public water supply wells, call for casing at least 2 inches in inside diameter set at least 25 feet below the surface (for rotary and augered wells, unless the division approves otherwise). For new wells other than public water supply wells, 312 IAC 13-5-1 has the annulus grouted within 24 hours after the casing is installed or before the drilling equipment leaves the site, whichever comes first, and the well record must state the type, depth and thickness of the grout and how it was installed (312 IAC 13-2-6).
• Pump setting: unless the department approves otherwise, 312 IAC 13-4-3.5 requires the pumping apparatus to provide at least 20 feet of available drawdown in a well completed in an unconsolidated aquifer and at least 50 feet in a bedrock aquifer, and 312 IAC 13-7-1 has the pump set deep enough to allow for the drawdown it causes and for seasonal water-level changes.

• County role: the LaGrange County Health Department's septic information page says LaGrange County does not have water well ordinances and a residential water well permit is not required, but that well drillers need to follow the Indiana Department of Health and Indiana DNR regulations on well separation and potential contamination sources. For a commercial well, the department says the Indiana Department of Environmental Management should be contacted to get any permit required by state law.
• Who needs a license: IC 25-39-3-1 says an individual may not be a water well driller (someone who operates well drilling or driving equipment or drills or drives wells) or a water well pump installer (someone who installs or repairs water well pumps) without a DNR license. IC 25-39-1.5-3 says chapters 3 and 4 of the statute do not apply to a person installing a well that is for personal use and no more than 1 1/4 inches inside diameter and 24 feet deep; to a plumber licensed under IC 25-28.5 who has registered with DNR and installs wells within that same size and depth limit; to a person who installs or repairs a water well pump or pumping equipment for personal use; or to a person working under the direction and personal supervision of a license holder. 312 IAC 13-1-19.3 defines personal use as water supply use of a well or pumping equipment located on property the person owns or possesses, or, for a public water supply utility, possessed by one of its permanent employees. IC 25-39-4-11 also leaves out wells drilled under or incidental to an activity under IC 14-34 (surface coal mining and reclamation) or IC 14-37 (oil and gas), wells drilled solely to supply water for secondary recovery of petroleum, and wells drilled solely to evaluate the foundation characteristics of earth materials for bridges, roadways, buildings or other engineered structures.
• Getting a license: under IC 25-39-3-3 an applicant must be at least 18, furnish evidence from three references (two of them water well drillers, water well pump installers or licensed plumbing contractors familiar with the applicant's work experience and professional competency) and pass DNR's competency examination. The license fee is $100 per calendar year (312 IAC 13-2-2), and every license expires December 31 of the year it was issued for (IC 25-39-3-1).
• Well placement: under 312 IAC 13-3-2, which does not cover monitoring or dewatering wells, a well sits as far as practicable from any high capacity well and any known contamination source, with earth placed to drain surface water away, and the finished casing or pitless unit ends at least 1 foot above ground level. In a designated flood hazard area it must either be at least 2 feet above the regulatory flood elevation or carry a watertight pitless unit cap or well seal vented to at least 2 feet above that elevation. 312 IAC 13-3-3 keeps the well's center line at least 5 feet from any building projection, and 312 IAC 13-4-4 requires the division to approve a well pit design before construction.
• Septic separation: Table I of 410 IAC 6-8.3-57, Indiana's residential on-site sewage rule, puts septic tanks and other treatment units, dosing tanks, lift stations and soil absorption systems at least 50 feet from a private water supply or private geothermal well and at least 100 feet from a commercial water supply or commercial geothermal well. Those distances double for soil absorption systems built where a horizon within 34 inches of the surface has a soil loading rate above 0.75 gallons per day per square foot under the rule's Table IV, unless system design overcomes that hazard, and the distance to a private well abandoned under 312 IAC 13-10-2(e) may be cut to 10 feet.
• Septic work on the same lot: the LaGrange County Health Department's procedure says a site plan drawing is required to issue a septic permit, and the well location is one of several items that drawing must show; the Residential Septic Permit Procedures on the health department's septic information page list everything the plan needs. The fee schedule adopted by Ordinance No. 2023-10-16 on October 16, 2023 lists $75 residential and $150 commercial for septic inspection services and septic construction permits, the latter good for one year; the septic information page adds that a permit could be renewed if the system has not been installed within one year of issue.
• Well records: for every well drilled, IC 25-39-4-1 has the licensee record the location, the depth and diameter, the date the contractor completed it, the character and thickness of materials or formations drilled, the static water level and performance data, and any other information required by rule, then send a copy to the department on forms it prescribes or approves within 30 days after completion. 312 IAC 13-2-6 lists the further items the record must carry.

• Howe Outwash Aquifer System: DNR maps it across the northern third of the county, with near-surface outwash sand and gravel 15 to 135 feet thick over an altered till plain, and rates ground-water availability as good to excellent at 100 to 1,000 gallons per minute, with the surficial deposits highly susceptible to contamination. Around Pigeon Lake, North and South Twin Lakes and Still Lake west of Howe, clay layers 25 to 180 feet thick lie under the surface sand and gravel and availability drops to 5 to 100 gallons per minute.
• Topeka Aquifer System: its northern occurrence begins just south of Topeka and runs into Noble County, with up to 126 feet of near-surface sand and gravel over till. DNR says most existing wells there use the more continuous deeper sand and gravel layer rather than the near-surface deposits.
• Other mapped systems: DNR rates the Natural Lakes and Moraines system at 25 to 800 gallons per minute, the Kendallville system (sand and gravel lenses usually 5 to 30 feet thick in thick clay) at 25 to 600, the Nappanee system at 50 to 600, and the St. Joseph Aquifer System at 100 to 1,500 gallons per minute and highly susceptible to contamination.
• Bedrock: the one bedrock aquifer system DNR identifies is the Devonian and Mississippian Coldwater, Ellsworth and Antrim Shales, which it calls an aquitard and an extremely limited resource. It puts the overlying unconsolidated sediments at about 100 to over 400 feet thick and reports that only two water wells in the county reportedly draw from the shale.
• Water levels: a 2012 DNR potentiometric surface map contoured about 4,400 static water levels from well records, with contours from about 970 feet above mean sea level in the southeast to about 810 feet in the northwest corner. DNR cautions that the levels reflect conditions when each well was completed and that the map is no substitute for a site-specific study.
• Water quality: the Indiana Department of Health notes that glacial deposits of arsenic and naturally occurring methane exist throughout Indiana, that bacteria and nitrates are typically found in human and animal waste and released from failing septic systems and large herds of animals, and that private well water is unregulated by both IDEM and the EPA, leaving owners responsible for its safety.

Lagrange · Shipshewana · Topeka · Wolcottville · Howe