The Province has its groundwater observation wells compared to their own history day-by-day. Most of the Kootenay-Boundary wells are below normal as of Oct. 11. Six of the eight reporting wells were below normal for the date. It was three of nine a year ago on this date.
The wells, as the Province classes them. In the Boundary, observation well OW217 at Grand Forks (Aquifer 158) is much below normal, at the 9.5 percentile of its 22 years; OW306 at Beaverdell (Aquifer 482) is below normal, at the 20th percentile of 22 years; and OW444 at Midway (Aquifer 478) reads Low, which is the Province’s class for the lowest level ever measured for that day of the year, in a record of eight years. In the East Kootenay, OW362 at Jaffray (Aquifer 521) is much below normal, at the 5.3 percentile of 21 years, and OW468 at Cranbrook (Aquifer 525) is below normal, at the 12.5 percentile of eight years. OW309 at Golden (Aquifer 450), which the Province counts in this region, though Golden is Columbia-Shuswap country, is below normal at the 22.7 percentile of 23 years. Two wells read normal: OW291 at Cranbrook (Aquifer 523), in sedimentary rock, and OW363 at Wasa (Aquifer 540). OW074 at Ootischenia (Aquifer 501) has not reported since November 2025.
What the classes mean. Normal is the middle half of a well’s own record for that day, the 25th to the 75th percentile. Below normal is the 10th to the 25th; much below normal is below the 10th. Low is the lowest ever measured for that date. Every class is measured against that one well’s history, so a well with eight years of record, like Midway or OW468, has a shorter memory than one with 23. The Province marks the October figures as working data, which it may still revise.
Four of the six wells below normal are in unconfined sand and gravel, the ground that answers fastest to a dry season; the other two, OW309 at Golden and OW468 at Cranbrook, are in confined gravels, so this is not only a water-table story. Four of the region’s five unconfined wells are below normal, and both of its reporting confined wells are also below normal. A household well in the same unconfined aquifer draws on the water table these wells are measuring.
Who should pay attention: Anyone on a well in the Grand Forks, Midway, Beaverdell, or Jaffray areas, and anyone on the confined gravel aquifers at Cranbrook (Aquifer 525) and Golden (Aquifer 450), where both reporting wells are below normal. Farms and ranches drawing on the same aquifers. Drillers and pump installers working in the Boundary and the East Kootenay this fall should be aware that a pump set for a normal year may be set too high for this one.
What to do next: If a well has been slow to recover, note the date and the static level if you can measure it, and keep the record; a year from now, it will be the surest comparison you have. Do not lower a pump without knowing the well’s depth and the pump’s rating. The Province’s observation well pages include each well’s hydrograph, and the Province’s drought levels for the basins covering the Boundary and the Kootenays are updated weekly on the Wire’s Drought & Supply page throughout the season.
The Note: What the Province’s wells add is the date and the depth, measured the same way every year, which is what a well owner needs when the question in a dry spring is whether this is the well or the year.
Checked against: the River Forecast Centre’s Kootenay-Boundary Region Groundwater Level Conditions page (bcrfc.env.gov.bc.ca, generated October 13, 2026, data to October 11, 2026; working data), read October 14, 2026.
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