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An Idaho well and septic glossary for land buyers

The terms that cost people money on rural Idaho land are the ones that sound interchangeable and are not — total depth versus depth to water, a well versus a water right, a soil survey versus a site evaluation, a visible road versus legal access. Each is defined below.

Every term used on this site, defined once: wells, septic and soils, water rights, and land records.

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Wells

  • **Total depth** — how far down the borehole goes. The main driver of drilling cost, which is quoted per foot.
  • **Static water level (depth to water)** — how far below the surface water settles in a finished well. Sets pump sizing and running cost. Not the same as total depth.
  • **Yield** — how much water the well produced when tested, in gallons per minute (gpm). Measured once, usually at completion.
  • **gpm** — gallons per minute. About 6 gpm is a common planning benchmark for a single-family home.
  • **Casing** — the pipe lining the borehole. Almost always quoted separately from the per-foot drilling rate.
  • **Artesian well** — one where pressure pushes water up without pumping. A recorded water level of zero can mean this, or can mean nobody recorded one.
  • **Driller’s log** — the construction report a driller files for every completed well. Idaho publishes a scan of every one.
  • **Abandonment** — properly sealing a well that is no longer used. A legal obligation in Idaho, not an optional tidy-up.

Septic and soils

  • **Site evaluation** — soil pits dug on the parcel and inspected by the health district. The thing that actually decides what system is permitted.
  • **Perc test** — a percolation test measuring how fast water moves through the soil.
  • **Drainfield (leach field)** — the buried trenches that disperse effluent into the soil.
  • **Conventional system** — gravity-fed septic tank and drainfield. The cheapest outcome.
  • **Engineered system** — a designed alternative where a conventional drainfield will not work. Frequently a five-figure difference.
  • **Mound system** — a raised drainfield built where there is not enough soil depth above bedrock or groundwater.
  • **SSURGO** — the USDA soil survey. Mapped at roughly 1:24,000, so it describes the neighbourhood soil, not one drainfield location.
  • **"Very limited"** — a USDA septic suitability rating. Nearly universal across Idaho, so the reasons beneath it matter far more than the rating.

Water rights

  • **Water right** — a right to use a defined amount of water, for a defined purpose, in a defined place. Separate from owning the land.
  • **Prior appropriation** — Idaho’s system. Older rights are satisfied before newer ones in a shortage.
  • **Priority date** — when the right was established. In a dry year this decides who gets water.
  • **Domestic exemption** — Idaho Code 42-227 exempts domestic wells from the permit requirement; 42-111 defines the limits, including irrigation of up to half an acre and 13,000 gallons a day.
  • **Point of diversion (POD)** — where water is taken out.
  • **Place of use (POU)** — where it may be used. A POU covering tens of thousands of acres is an irrigation district, not a parcel right.
  • **Irrigation district** — an organisation delivering surface water on a schedule, with assessments and sometimes ditch obligations attached.

Land and records

  • **Quarter-quarter section** — a 40-acre block in the Public Land Survey System. Most Idaho well locations were recorded this way, so a plotted well can be roughly 900 ft from the real one.
  • **PLSS** — the township-range-section grid most of the western United States is described in.
  • **Legal lot of record** — a parcel that legally exists as a separate lot. Not every mapped parcel is one.
  • **Easement** — a recorded right for someone else to use part of the land, commonly for access or utilities.
  • **Approach permit** — county permission to connect a driveway to a public road.
  • **Flood zone** — FEMA’s mapped flood hazard designation. A base flood elevation of -9999 means "not applicable", not below sea level.
  • **Nitrate priority area** — an Idaho DEQ designation marking where nitrate has been found in groundwater. A reason to test, not a verdict on any particular well.

Sources

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