BLUE SKY COUNTRYREAL ESTATE
BLUE SKY COUNTRYREAL ESTATE
Navarro County and the counties around it
Water, soil, and what is growing on it. How to read a tract before anyone prices it — and where the public record actually is.
Start with the water
Nobody buys a place they can’t water, and nobody should price one on a guess about it. Texas keeps the answer in public: every well a licensed driller has reported since 2003, with what it made. Here is what that record says about this county, and how to read it for a particular tract. What the land qualifies for is a separate question, and it has its own page.
What the record says
Of the 130 domestic wells reported to the state in Navarro County since 2001, the middle one is 82 feet deep, stands about 20 feet below ground, and made about 10 gallons a minute on the driller’s own test. Half are between 60 and 150 feet. That’s the county’s real answer to “can I get water here” — not an estimate, and not a national average.
Every report a licensed driller filed since 2003 is public and free in the Texas Water Development Board’s Submitted Driller’s Report database, searchable by county or on a map. Each report carries total depth, the static water level, the yield in gallons a minute with the drawdown, the casing, and a log of what the bit went through. Anything drilled before 2003 is with the TCEQ instead.
Three things thin the data, and anyone reading it should know all three. Nothing before 2003 is in the state database. The state doesn’t verify well locations and says so. And an owner may ask that a report be made confidential, after which it’s not public record at all.
The Nacatoch is the realistic shallow answer through the middle of the county — fresh to slightly saline down to about 300 feet, generally 10 to 15 gallons a minute. The Woodbine is here but it’s deep, and the water carries iron and fluoride. In the far east the Carrizo-Wilcox comes to the surface and shallow wells work. Along the Trinity the river alluvium is the one thing in the county that will carry sustained irrigation.
Navarro County sits inside no groundwater conservation district. No permit, no spacing rule, no production limit, no meter — and no arbitration either, because Texas groundwater runs on the rule of capture. The state’s own phrase for it is the law of the biggest pump. A large well next door isn’t something a district will step into here.
A wellhead needs 50 feet from a septic tank, a property line, a cistern or a non-potable well, and 100 feet from a drain or leach field, with greater distances from livestock pens and chemical storage. On a small tract those distances, and not the water, are often what decides where the house goes.
Reading the ground
The species on a tract do three jobs at once, and most listings notice only the first. They are what a buyer falls for; they are what tells you where the soil, the water and the range condition are; and they are what an appraisal district will accept as proof of a wildlife plan.
To a buyer it’s open, handsome country. To anyone reading the tract it says native prairie rather than a worn-out field of introduced grass, and it says something about how the place has been grazed. To an appraisal district it’s habitat and native food, which is part of what a wildlife plan has to show.
Shade and hardwood to a buyer, and a soil map to everybody else. They grow where the bottomland and the moisture are, which is usually also where the creek, the likely building site and the flood risk are.
Browse and mast. This is why the deer are on that tract and not the one next door, which is what a hunting buyer is actually paying for — and it’s documented supplemental food on a management plan.
The eastern and southern end of the county turns to the lighter sands and loams of the post oak country. Easier on a septic system, harder on a pond. The heavy clay through the west and center of the county is the reverse: it will hold a tank, and it moves under a slab.
Not an adjective. Where the tree line is, what the next building site along looks into, which way the road noise carries, whether the drive can be screened. Those are answerable on the ground before an offer.
Straight answers
Search the Texas Water Development Board’s driller’s-report database by county, or use its map and click the wells nearest the tract. It’s free and it’s the driller’s own paperwork. Send me the address and I will pull what is on file around it.
There’s water almost everywhere; the question is at what depth, at what rate, and of what quality. The answer changes across the county, and the wells already drilled nearby are the strongest evidence anyone has of it.
There’s no groundwater conservation district in this county, so there’s no district permit. The driller must be licensed by the state and must file a report within 60 days. City or county rules can still apply where a tract sits inside them, and that’s worth a call before anyone commits.
There’s no honest published figure for this county, and any number you see online is usually a national average against a statewide depth that doesn’t match here. Depth, casing and the pump decide it. Get quotes from licensed drillers working this county.
The wells on file nearby, the soils, what is growing on it and what that opens up. It’s a morning of work and it’s the same work I’d do before pricing it. Email reaches me fastest, and I answer it myself. If you call and get voicemail, leave a message and I’ll call you back.
Call (903) 695-2978 · Email what you have · Ag and wildlife valuation · What it takes to build on it · Dividing land
The survey, the appraisal-district notice, a couple of photos. Whatever is in hand. Email reaches me fastest, and I answer it myself. If you call and get voicemail, leave a message and I’ll call you back.
Call (903) 695-2978 · robert@blueskycountry.com
205 S Fordyce, Blooming Grove, Texas 76626 · by appointment. Robert Phipps, Broker · TREC #0460512.