Louisiana Well Law: Licensing, Testing, and Plugging Rules

Louisiana well law is built around the Office of Conservation, which sets construction standards, licenses drillers, registers new wells, and oversees how wells are plugged when taken out of service. The technical rules live in Louisiana Administrative Code Title 56, Part I, with statutory authority coming from Revised Statutes Title 38. What most well owners don’t realize is that the state stops well short of regulating your drinking water: private residential wells fall outside the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and no agency routinely tests what comes out of your tap.¹

Who Regulates Water Wells in Louisiana

The Office of Conservation, housed within the Department of Conservation and Energy (formerly the Department of Natural Resources, then Energy and Natural Resources), runs the state’s water well program. Its job is to make sure wells are properly constructed, installed, registered, and eventually plugged and abandoned.² It also licenses drillers so that only qualified people are putting holes in the ground.

The rulebook itself is LAC Title 56, Part I, which covers well registration, construction, plugging and sealing, and control devices on free-flowing wells.³ The Office of Conservation’s power to write and enforce those rules comes from Revised Statutes Title 38, Section 3098, which also authorizes compliance orders and civil penalties for violations.⁴

The Louisiana Department of Health oversees more than 1,200 public water systems for compliance with state and federal drinking water rules.⁵ For private wells, LDH offers testing services and educational material, but the federal Safe Drinking Water Act does not regulate wells serving fewer than 25 people, and Louisiana has not filled that gap with its own routine monitoring requirement for residential wells.¹

Who Owns the Groundwater Beneath Your Land

Louisiana treats groundwater more permissively than most states. Civil Code Article 490 says that owning a tract of land includes everything directly above or below it, and the owner may make works above or below the surface as they please, unless restrained by law or the rights of others.⁶

The state has historically followed what scholars call the “absolute dominion” doctrine. In Adams v. Grigsby, an appellate court dismissed a suit by landowners who claimed a neighbor’s pumping harmed their wells, holding that Louisiana’s water rights statutes applied to surface water only and declining to adopt the reasonable-use rule followed elsewhere. The court acknowledged the outcome might seem unfair but said the long-standing framework could not be overturned by judicial action alone.⁷

The Legislature has softened the edges. Revised Statutes Section 3091 declares groundwater use a matter of public interest and sets up a framework for data gathering and administration.⁸ Related statutes give the Commissioner of Conservation authority to inspect wells, hold hearings, and cooperate with other agencies on groundwater conservation.⁹ So you still own the groundwater under your land, but the state can regulate how much you pump and under what conditions.

When You Need a Licensed Driller

Anyone in the business of drilling water wells in Louisiana must hold a license issued through the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. The annual fee is $50 for drillers who complete fewer than 25 domestic wells a year and $100 for everyone else. Licenses expire June 30 each year, and renewal requires six hours of continuing education.¹⁰

There is an exemption worth knowing about. An unlicensed person can drill a water well on their own land, or on land they lease, if the well serves only a single-family home used as their permanent residence, or waters livestock on their farm. The water cannot be used for public supply or for any residence other than the owner’s. Even so, the do-it-yourself owner must still follow every state construction rule that applies to a licensed driller.¹⁰ Most homeowners hire a licensed driller anyway, because a poorly built well can contaminate the aquifer or fail structurally.

Some well types trigger extra review. For industrial, public supply, irrigation, or dewatering wells, the licensed driller must confirm the Office of Conservation has received and responded to a water well installation notification before construction starts, so the agency can evaluate pumping impact on the aquifer and neighboring wells.⁴

Registering a New Well and Meeting Construction Standards

Every completed well must be registered with the Office of Conservation within 30 calendar days of completion. The driller files Form GW-1 or GW-1S with the completion date, depth, static water level, casing type and size, screen specs, cementing depth and method, and GPS coordinates.¹¹ A map or sketch showing the well’s location relative to roads, buildings, and nearby existing wells is also required.⁴

Chapter 3 of LAC Title 56, Part I sets the construction standards, covering casing, screens, and grouting.³ These specifications keep surface contaminants out of the well and prevent water from one aquifer from mixing with another. Requirements vary by well depth, site geology, and intended use, so residential, industrial, and monitoring wells each face different rules.

Testing Your Water After the Well Is In

Because private wells sit outside the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, monitoring the water is your job.¹ LDH strongly encourages annual testing but does not require it for a residential well.

Bacteriological testing is available through local parish health units. A sanitarian-collected test runs $150 and includes the lab analysis. If you collect the sample yourself and bring it in, the cost is $40.¹² LDH also recommends testing whenever the water’s taste, odor, or appearance changes, and after major hurricanes or floods. A broader certified-lab analysis covering more contaminants generally runs $200 to $600 depending on the panel.

Industry best practice also calls for an annual maintenance check: a flow test, an inspection of pump motor performance and pressure equipment, a look at the well head for sanitary compliance, and a water quality test for coliform bacteria and nitrates. Louisiana’s administrative code requires the casings, seals, and pumping equipment to remain intact and functional throughout the life of the well.

Plugging a Well You No Longer Use

When a well goes out of service, it must be properly plugged and abandoned under LAC Title 56, Part I, Chapter 5. The entire well is filled with cement-bentonite slurry from the bottom up to ground level, preferably in one continuous operation. Pouring or dropping plugging material through the water column is not allowed. In areas of confirmed groundwater contamination, the casing must be perforated and slurry forced under pressure into the surrounding formation to seal the annular space.¹³ An unplugged abandoned well is an open pipeline from the surface to the aquifer, which is why the standards are strict.

Pumping Limits in Stressed Aquifers

When an aquifer is losing sustainability through saltwater intrusion, dropping water levels, or land subsidence, any well owner significantly and adversely affected can ask the Commissioner of Conservation to declare the location an “area of ground water concern.”¹⁴

If the evidence supports action, the Commissioner issues a draft order with proposed boundaries and holds at least one public hearing in the affected area. The final designation, based on sound science and good management practices, can include educational programs, conservation incentives, and a management plan for the aquifer.¹⁴

Where sustainability cannot be maintained without limits, the Commissioner can escalate to a “critical area of ground water concern” and impose withdrawal restrictions. In setting those restrictions, human consumption and public health come first. Other factors include historical usage, the user’s conservation efforts, and whether a user could reasonably switch to an alternative water source.¹⁴

Disputes With Neighbors and Contamination Claims

Groundwater disputes usually start with the Office of Conservation, which can collect data, inspect properties, examine records, survey and test wells, and hold hearings to resolve conflicts.⁹ If a neighbor’s pumping is hurting your well, a complaint to the agency is the logical first step.

Contamination cases are different. Anyone filing suit alleging contamination that impacts or threatens usable groundwater must notify the Department of Environmental Quality by certified mail with a copy of the petition attached. DEQ then has the right to intervene under its own regulatory authority.¹⁵ The Louisiana Environmental Quality Act supplies the broader statutory framework for these claims.¹⁶

Private disputes over well interference or quantity often move through informal negotiation and mediation before reaching a courtroom. If a case does go to court, judges weigh the volume each party is pumping, historical usage, effects on surrounding wells, and compliance with state rules. Because Louisiana still leans toward absolute dominion, proving a neighbor’s pumping is legally actionable is harder here than in reasonable-use states.

Penalties for Well Law Violations

The Office of Conservation has broad enforcement powers, from compliance orders to civil penalties to revoking a driller’s license outright.⁴ Consequences scale with the seriousness of the violation:

Minor infractions like late registration or a missed reporting deadline may bring a warning or a modest fine.
Unauthorized drilling, including operating without a license or drilling without required pre-construction notification, carries steeper financial penalties.
Groundwater contamination through improper construction, failing to plug an abandoned well, or illegal waste disposal can trigger substantial fines and mandatory remediation at the violator’s expense.
Repeated or willful noncompliance can cost a driller their license, which effectively shuts down the business.

Where contamination harms public health or the environment, matters can escalate past administrative penalties into civil litigation under the Environmental Quality Act and potential criminal charges.¹⁶

Selling a Home Served by a Well

If you sell a home served by a private well, Louisiana’s property disclosure form requires you to identify the water source, state how many private wells serve the residence, and disclose when the water was last tested along with the results. If the property is not connected to a community water system regulated by LDH, a separate Private Water/Sewage Disclosure attachment is also required. Buyers should ask for recent test results and consider commissioning an independent test before closing, since seller-reported results can be old.

1
US EPA. Overview of the Safe Drinking Water Act
2
Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Ground Water Resources Program
3
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Code Title 56 Part I – Water Wells
4
Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Water Well Drillers and Contractors
5
Louisiana Department of Health. Safe Drinking Water Program
6
Justia Law. Louisiana Code Civil Code Article 490 – Accession Above and Below the Surface
7
CaseMine. Adams v Grigsby
8
Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes RS 38:3091 – Legislative Findings and Purpose
9
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code RS 38:3094 – Rules and Regulations; Powers of Secretary
10
Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes RS 38:3098 – Licensing of Water Well Drillers
11
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code Title 56 I-119 – Water Well Registration Short Form
12
Louisiana Department of Health. Private Well Testing Information
13
Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code Title 56 I-531 – Methods and Standards for Plugging
14
FindLaw. Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 38 3097.6
15
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 30:2015.1 – Purpose; Remediation of Usable Ground Water
16
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Louisiana Code 30:2001-2004 – Louisiana Environmental Quality Act