Lea County, NM Water Table Trend
Is the water table dropping in Lea County, NM?
Lea County's representative monitoring well shows depth to water declining at a typical pace for a declining county, a fitted trend of 2.3 ft per decade over 85 years of readings.
This is one representative well, not a county-wide survey, the same grain limit every page here discloses.
Lea County's source well, in detail
Depth to water at the last reading was 59.3 ft below land surface. Readings span 1940-09-26 to 2025-12-08, 145 measurements from USGS well USGS-324745103251501 (17s.35e.35.213132 242), part of the National Water Information System. The qualifying bar and the OLS fit behind this trend are documented in the methodology guide.
How Lea County compares nationally
Lea County sits at rank 1204th of 1,449 ranked counties, ordered rising-to-declining, so a low number means a rising water table and a high one means fast decline. Lea County, New Mexico is home to about 75,151 people. See the fastest-moving counties guide for how Lea County stacks up against the most extreme cases nationally.
If you own a well in Lea County
A dropping water table means a residential pump has to reach deeper and work harder, which shortens its life. In Lea County, that trend is real, not assumed: 2.3 ft per decade over 85 years.
Depth and quality are separate questions
This page answers a depth question, not a quality one. A well in Lea County can be stable in depth and still worth testing for quality, or declining and still test clean, the two are measured separately, and only a direct test settles the second one.