Are you interested in hiring someone to drill or repair a water well?  Are you looking for someone to install or repair a pump to an existing well?  Below is a list of contractors licensed to construct and repair water wells in Arkansas.

Licensed Contractors By County

Licensed Contractors By Contractor Last Name

Failure to use safe methods can contaminate groundwater sources from gasoline, oil, road salts, chemicals, bacteria from septic-tank effluent, or barnyard waste. Drinking contaminated water can cause diseases such as hepatitis or dysentery. Poisoning of both humans and wildlife is another effect of groundwater contamination.

Regulating the water well construction industry safeguards aquifers and other drinking water sources by ensuring that water well constructors are familiar with safe construction methods.

Requiring an Arkansas Contractor License protects Arkansas consumers because the holder of such a license is responsible for maintaining a $20,000 bond. When the contractor obtains the bond, he promises his business will uphold the ANRC’s rules and standards of well construction and pump installation. Customers of the contractor, who are injured by the failure of the contractor or his or her employees to comply with ANRC rules, can demand payment from the bond company in the event the customer suffers damage due to the failure to adhere to ANRC rules.

A contractor is also responsible for ensuring any person employed by him or her who drills wells or installs pumps holds a Certificate of Registration and attains continuing education.

A "critical groundwater area" is determined by the Commission to have significant groundwater depletion or degradation.  Designating an area indicates that the Commission may later determine that limiting groundwater withdrawals by users within the critical groundwater area may become necessary to maximize the area's remaining groundwater resources.  Designation also enhances awareness of the groundwater problems within the area and makes it easier to obtain local, state, and federal funds to resolve the area's groundwater problems.

Prior to designating a critical groundwater area, Commission staff shall publish a report containing a map of the proposed area that focuses on the geologic and hydrologic characteristics of the area that make it subject to designation.  The Commission will then conduct a public hearing within each county subject to designation.  The Commission will review the report, received public comments, and any other pertinent evidence to determine whether the area should be designated a critical groundwater area.  The Commission has designated three areas to date. 

Although the Commission has the authority to initiate regulation in critical groundwater areas by following a process similar to that required for designation of an area, the Commission has never taken steps to regulate these areas.

Critical Groundwater Facts and Map

Click here to view the 2016 report "Groundwater and the Rural Homeowner" by the U. S. Geological Survey.

When an owner of land abandons or ceases using a water well, he or she is required by law to either fill up the well or place a sturdy cover over the well to prevent animals and persons from falling into the well.

The ANRC considers a well to be abandoned when it is in such a state of disrepair that continued use for the purpose of obtaining groundwater is impractical. 

Please submit a completed Arkansas Water Well Abandonment Form to the ANRC after abandoning a water well. 

For more information, please read Water Well Abandonment Fact Sheet.