I found a spring!

I finally realized something after doing some more research on my property- I have a spring.

It appears that I have a natural high groundwater spring on the western portion of my property, about 1200' away from where I want to build. This spring occurs naturally and still has groundwater at about 5-6' from where I found an old monitoring well. During the winter months it creates a second small swale that runs for 3-6 months.

Supposedly there was an original hand-dug well on my parcel as shown from an old septic report where the windmill was located. I found a pile of rocks, but not a well. Too much land to just easily find it when you have 48 acres. I thought maybe looking at an old satellite photo might clear it up, but I can't see the windmill.

In California, you cannot legally drill your own well without a C-57 license. I am going to have a professional well drilled, but I am thinking about developing this natural spring some 1200' away from where I want to build for cattle grazing since it should just require a pump down the hole and maybe a bit of backhoe work to clean it out. It is about 40-50' lower in elevation and it eminates from my property as shown from the contours. Might be a valuable resource.

I originally wanted to drill my own well under an 'owner-builder' method but there were court cases that I found online where these wells could never be permitted and even the state was going after those doing this. I only need to drill about 20-30' max to get plenty of water. Even still, the cheapest driller including casing for a 100' well was about $6,000 not including the pump or permit ($235). If you are in California, you are pretty much screwed with this work. The well drillers have cornered the market and you are out of luck for a legal well. I don't see a problem however you drilling other wells on your property once you have one permitted... It would be difficult for both the assessors and environmental health to figure it out.