Bucks County Well Permits: What BCDH Actually Requires

Most of Pennsylvania has no county-level requirement to permit a private well -- drillers register with the state, and that's it. Bucks County is a real exception: since 2007, the Bucks County Department of Health has required its own construction permit for any well not already regulated by DEP, with its own application, its own inspection, and a setback rule that ties well placement directly to septic system placement.

This page covers what's specific to Bucks County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Why Bucks County wells work differently from most of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has no statewide permit requirement for a private residential well -- well drillers must register with the state Department of Environmental Protection, but in most counties, no local government reviews or approves an individual well before it's drilled. Bucks County departs from that default. Beginning in 2007, the Bucks County Department of Health (BCDH) implemented its own rules and regulations governing the location, construction, modification, and abandonment of any well not otherwise regulated by DEP -- which in practice covers essentially every private residential well, since DEP's own well regulation only kicks in for public water systems with at least 15 service connections or 25 year-round users. The stated purpose was straightforward: minimizing the risk of groundwater contamination from unregulated well construction across the county. This puts Bucks County in a genuinely small group of Pennsylvania counties (Chester County is the other well-known example) that actually require a county-level permit before a private well can be drilled.

The permit itself: SA-130, a fee, and 48 hours' notice

A property owner or driller needs to submit BCDH's Application to Construct/Modify a Well (form SA-130) along with the current fee before any drilling begins, and BCDH requires at least 48 hours' notice ahead of the actual drilling date. The permit covers new construction as well as modifications -- casing reconstruction, pitless adapter installation, deepening an existing well, and hydrofracturing are all treated as modifications requiring their own permit under BCDH's rules, not just brand-new wells. The same framework also covers test wells, monitoring wells, irrigation wells, and geothermal wells, not just a standard residential drinking-water well, and it separately addresses formal well abandonment when a well is taken out of service.

A setback rule that ties your well directly to your septic system

One requirement worth flagging specifically for anyone planning both a new well and a new septic system on the same undeveloped Bucks County lot: BCDH's own procedures require that all sewage system component locations within 125 feet of a proposed well be clearly staked in the field before the well construction permit can be approved. Because Bucks County's Department of Health administers both the countywide well program and the countywide septic program (see the county hub for the septic side), the same office is effectively reviewing both systems together on a given parcel -- which cuts both ways for a buyer. It's a genuine convenience to have one office coordinating the site layout, but it also means the two systems are not independent line items: the septic design has to be locked in, staked, and visible in the field before a well permit on a tight lot can move forward, so sequence the two applications together rather than assuming either can be finalized in isolation.

What to check on a well already in the ground

Pennsylvania state law does not mandate well-water testing at the point of a real estate sale, but most mortgage lenders require a basic water-quality test as a condition of financing, and federal loan programs (FHA, VA, USDA) require it outright -- so budget for a test even though it isn't a state or county legal mandate in itself. Bucks County's own guidance recommends testing for bacteria roughly every 14 months and for pH and total dissolved solids about every three years as ongoing maintenance, a reasonable baseline to ask a seller about even outside a financing requirement. If you're buying a property with an existing well, ask specifically whether it was permitted and inspected under BCDH's post-2007 program (an older well predating 2007 may not have gone through this process at all) and request any BCDH permit or inspection record for the well the same way you'd request one for the septic system on the same lot.

Private Well Permits in Bucks County

Why Bucks County wells work differently from most of Pennsylvania

The permit itself: SA-130, a fee, and 48 hours' notice

A setback rule that ties your well directly to your septic system

What to check on a well already in the ground

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