Well Water and Groundwater Rules in Colfax County, Nebraska

Well permits and flow meters on the Lower Elkhorn side of the county

For the portion of Colfax County inside the Lower Elkhorn NRD (LENRD), anyone installing a new or replacement well with a capacity greater than 50 gallons per minute needs a permit from the district before drilling. LENRD also requires a flow meter -- one that measures both gallons-per-minute flow rate and acre-inch totals -- on every active high-capacity well (over 50 gpm) in the district; the district set January 1, 2019 as the deadline for this to be in place districtwide, so a well drilled or converted since then should already have one, and an older well without one is worth asking about directly. In parts of the district under a D3 or D4 water-shortage designation, LENRD also caps groundwater use: roughly 250 gallons per person per day for municipal supply wells, and about 15 inches per certified irrigated acre per year for irrigation wells that don't already have a different allocation on file. None of these numbers automatically apply to the Lower Platte North side of Colfax County, which sets its own rules -- confirm which district covers a specific parcel (as the hub explains) before assuming either set of figures applies.

A nitrate Phase 2 area reaches into part of Colfax County

LENRD manages groundwater quality through a three-tier phase system based on how close nitrate-nitrogen levels are to the EPA's 10 parts-per-million drinking-water limit. Phase 1 is the district's default, unrestricted tier. Phase 2 covers areas where monitored wells show nitrate-nitrogen at 50-90% of that limit (roughly 5 to 9 ppm), are otherwise vulnerable to contamination, or sit in the recharge area for a public supply well. Phase 3, the most restricted tier, covers areas above 90% of the limit (roughly 9 ppm and up). Following elevated nitrate readings first flagged in 2018 monitoring, LENRD's board moved to designate a Phase 2 Groundwater Management Area covering affected portions of Colfax County alongside neighboring Cuming and Dodge Counties -- a real, named regulatory footprint, not a countywide blanket designation.

Inside a Phase 2 area, the added obligations fall mainly on irrigators rather than a rural homeowner: anyone applying commercial nitrogen fertilizer must obtain (and renew every four years) a Nitrogen Certification, a single application of commercial nitrogen fertilizer above 80 pounds per acre is prohibited, and growers must complete deep soil sampling (24 inches down, one sample per no more than 80 acres of continuous corn) and test their irrigation water at least once every four years, reporting results to the district. If you're buying farmland in the Colfax County portion of this Phase 2 area with plans to irrigate and apply nitrogen, budget for these certification and testing steps as an ongoing compliance cost, not a one-time closing item -- confirm current boundaries and requirements directly with LENRD, since phase-area boundaries can be revised as monitoring data changes.

For a private well: LENRD's free domestic well testing program

If you're evaluating land in the Lower Elkhorn portion of Colfax County that would rely on a private domestic well rather than municipal or rural water-district service, LENRD runs a Domestic Well Sampling Program the district's board adopted in 2022 and has continued since: the district pays 100% of the cost to test a registered, active domestic well for bacteria, nitrate, and two separate herbicide/pesticide panels. To participate, the well needs to be registered and listed as active with the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment (the state agency that maintains well registration records) -- worth checking, and correcting if needed, as part of due diligence on any specific parcel with an existing well. Given the elevated nitrate readings that led to the Phase 2 designation described above, a free, district-run test is a genuinely useful, no-cost verification step before relying on a specific well for drinking water, rather than assuming water quality from the seller's account alone.

What to check for a specific parcel

• Which NRD actually covers the parcel (Lower Elkhorn or Lower Platte North) -- the well-permit, flow-meter, and allocation rules above apply only to the Lower Elkhorn side.
• Whether the parcel sits inside the proposed Phase 2 Groundwater Management Area, and if so, whether you plan to irrigate and apply nitrogen fertilizer -- that triggers certification, testing, and reporting obligations.
• For an existing well you'd rely on for drinking water: whether it's registered and active with the state, and whether you can use LENRD's free domestic well testing program to check bacteria, nitrate, and herbicide/pesticide levels before closing.
• Whether an existing high-capacity well on the property (over 50 gpm) already has the required flow meter installed, particularly if the well predates 2019.