Frequently asked questions
What this tells you, and what it does not.
Water data invites overconfidence. These answers are written to be useful before you spend money, including the parts that are unflattering.
Coverage and accuracy
- Which properties can I look up?
- Property search currently covers Beaverhead, Big Horn, Blaine, Broadwater, Carbon, Carter, Cascade, Chouteau, Custer, Daniels, Dawson, Deer Lodge, Fallon, Fergus, Flathead, Gallatin, Garfield, Glacier, Golden Valley, Granite, Hill, Jefferson, Judith Basin, Lake, Lewis And Clark, Liberty, Lincoln, Madison, Mccone, Meagher, Mineral, Missoula, Musselshell, Park, Petroleum, Phillips, Pondera, Powder River, Powell, Prairie, Ravalli, Richland, Roosevelt, Rosebud, Sanders, Sheridan, Silver Bow, Stillwater, Sweet Grass, Teton, Toole, Treasure, Valley, Wheatland, Wibaux and Yellowstone Counties. If you search an address we do not cover, the site will tell you it cannot identify the property. It will never invent a result. We are adding counties in order of land-transaction volume.
- How current is the data?
- The most recent source retrieval was September 26, 2026. Every report is stamped with the vintage of each source it used, so you always know how fresh the underlying records are. State well logs are filed continuously, so a well drilled last month may not appear yet.
- How accurate is the depth estimate?
- It is a range built from real neighbouring well logs, not a model guess. Accuracy depends entirely on how many comparable wells exist nearby and how similar their geology is, which is why every report shows the comparable count, the search radius used, and a confidence rating of high, moderate, or low. A low-confidence range is a genuine warning, not boilerplate.
- Why do you never give me one depth number?
- Because we would be making it up. Two wells on the same road can differ by a hundred feet. A single figure would look authoritative and invite you to budget against it. You get the likely range, the median of comparable wells, and the number of wells those figures rest on, so you can judge the spread yourself.
Where the numbers come from
- What are your sources?
- Three state systems, and nothing else: the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Ground Water Information Center (GWIC) for well logs, the Montana DNRC for water rights and regulatory boundaries, and the Montana State Library cadastral framework for parcels. Every record in a report links back to the original state page so you or your client can verify it. Full detail is on the sources page.
- What do recorded, calculated, estimated, and potential match mean?
- They are how we tell you the strength of each claim. Recorded came straight off a filed document. Calculated is arithmetic on recorded values, like a median. Estimated is inferred from comparable wells. Potential match means a record appears to relate to this property by location, but the state data does not tie it to the parcel definitively. Water rights are frequently potential matches, and treating one as a certainty is the most common way to misread this kind of data.
- How do you choose which wells to compare?
- We widen the search until there is enough data — half a mile, then one, two, and five miles — stopping as soon as we have enough comparable wells. Geologic similarity is weighted more heavily than raw distance, because a well two miles away in the same hydrogeologic unit predicts your site better than one half a mile away in different rock. High-capacity wells — public supply, irrigation, industrial, fire protection, geothermal — are excluded, along with monitoring, geotechnical and test holes, since none of them is comparable to a domestic well.
- Why do you show separate ratings instead of one score?
- Because averaging them would hide the thing that matters. A parcel can have excellent depth and yield and sit inside a closed basin, which is the single most important fact about it. Well depth, yield outlook, water rights, and regulatory standing are rated separately so a serious problem cannot be diluted by three good numbers.
Buying a report
- What do I get for free?
- A real water overview on every covered property, with no account: how many wells we analyzed, the median depth and typical range, median reported yield, median static water level, the count of potential water rights, the aquifer, a map of nearby wells, county context, and the confidence rating. It is genuinely useful on its own.
- What does the paid report add?
- The complete analysis: the depth predictor with its full working, yield outlook, groundwater level trends, water rights with links to the original DNRC records, risk flags, a direct assessment of whether you can drill a well on the parcel, water quality context, and every original record we used. It costs $49 for one property.
- Do I need an account?
- Not for the free overview. Accounts and the professional dashboard are still being built; until then a purchased report is tied to your session and the property you bought.
- Can I get a PDF?
- PDF export is not built yet. It is planned, and it is included in the professional plans when it ships. We would rather say that than list it as a live feature.
Limits — what this is not
- Is this a guarantee that I will find water?
- No, and treat any product that says otherwise with suspicion. We report what the public record shows about wells near a property. Whether a specific well on a specific spot hits water at a specific depth is determined by the ground, and no dataset can promise it. Use this to ask better questions and to budget realistically, not as a warranty.
- Does a report replace a driller, a hydrogeologist, or a water-rights attorney?
- No. It replaces the several hours of records research they would otherwise start with, and it tells you whether you need them at all. For a contested water right or a parcel in a controlled groundwater area, get a professional.
- Can I rely on the water rights section for a legal decision?
- No. Water rights are matched to a property by location, and Montana's water-right records are not organized in a way that makes that match certain. We label them as potential matches for exactly this reason and link you to the original DNRC record. Confirming ownership and standing of a water right is legal work.
- What if a report is wrong or a property is missing data?
- Tell us — that is genuinely valuable, particularly if you have local knowledge that contradicts the record. Where the state data is thin, the report will say so and lower its confidence rather than filling the gap with plausible-sounding text. If you believe a figure is wrong, email matt@paradisevalleymedia.com with the address.
Still deciding?
Run a property you already know something about. It is the fastest way to calibrate how much to trust this.