Sierra Vista-Hereford well / water issues (Nogales, Bisbee: buying a house, buying, to live)

[phaneuf]

Is there a problem with the water table or wells when buying a house in the Sierra Vista-Hereford area one needs to be aware of?

[gr8tescape1]

I've wondered about this too, not only for the Sierra Vista area, but also for Bisbee, Sonoita-Elgin-Patagonia, Nogales, and Oracle. I do hear about it being an issue. You buy a home, then the well goes dry. You re-drill a well for 10s of 1000s of dollars, then it goes dry. You spend even more to drill deeper. Then a wildfire comes and, poof!!!

[keninaz]

We lived in Hereford at the base of the mountains for several years. We shared a well with our neighbor as required by the property deed.
That well had been in place since the original ranch was set in place in the late 1800s. It never went dry and the pump never had to be lowered in what history we found going back some 70 years. The pump was at 35'.
But, just two acres away, there was a very low production well in place that went dry all the time. The depth of that well was nearly 400'.
My Father-in-law told me that the very old timers used to listen to the ground when it was quiet for the underground rivers like we were tapped into. He told me that some on these new drillers knew very little about finding water.
Finding water on your property can be a crap shoot.
And one of the reasons we moved is that the country (or Sierra Vista) was planning on running water along the highway and forcing people to connect to city water.

[Coop01]

Originally Posted by keninaz

We lived in Hereford at the base of the mountains for several years. We shared a well with our neighbor as required by the property deed.
That well had been in place since the original ranch was set in place in the late 1800s. It never went dry and the pump never had to be lowered in what history we found going back some 70 years. The pump was at 35'.
But, just two acres away, there was a very low production well in place that went dry all the time. The depth of that well was nearly 400'.
My Father-in-law told me that the very old timers used to listen to the ground when it was quiet for the underground rivers like we were tapped into. He told me that some on these new drillers knew very little about finding water.
Finding water on your property can be a crap shoot.
And one of the reasons we moved is that the country (or Sierra Vista) was planning on running water along the highway and forcing people to connect to city water.

That's what happened in an area where I used to live and right now to some property I own in another state.
Small town. Corrupt city council and land owner friends and kin.
Big investors bought thousands of acres of barren land with no water. - dirt cheap.
My area of town had plenty of water and good producing wells .
City put in a sewage (water) system and forced everyone to cap their wells and hook up.
Investors paid to run the lines from the city wells out to their worthless land and built tacky tract homes followed by fast food joints and cheap $1 stores.
The newcomers put pressure on the city council to improve the roads because traffic was getting crowded on the one lane highway and they needed to drive 40 miles to their jobs in the BIG city.
No Thanks!. I'll drive 40 miles to shop in the BIG city once a month.

Look at the San Fernando Valley in South California and Las Vegas That's how it happens. That's the blueprint and it will never change.

Much later,the developers build a couple of public museums and hospital wings (named after themselves of course) and are lauded as visionaries.
The rest of us live in the ____holes they helped create.

Sound familiar?
This is happening right now in rural AZ.
George Carlin said it best "It's a big club .............. and you ain't in it."
You tube - George Carlin - The Big Club

[augiedogie]

Water is always an issue in the west. Ive been told that there is a nice big aquifer under sierra vista. So if your on city water you're ok. But if you buy a piece and plan on sinking a well, Id pray a lot. I know a guy near benson az that hit water on his land at less than 200 ft. But I also know a guy near las vegas that has a 900 ft. well. So its really hard to say. Unreliable water supply is putting large real estste development on hold in this area.