A Washington well report and a Snohomish County building-permit water-supply decision are separate records. Use the Department of Ecology well-report viewer to look for a completed well, then check the county’s water-supply requirements for the proposed building site. A drilling notice by itself does not establish either a usable well or a right to use its water.
Identify the well before using its report
Ecology’s viewer offers map and text searches. Its search help describes county, owner, address, tax parcel number, well tag, report ID, and township-range-section routes. Start with the Snohomish County parcel and any well identifier in the property’s papers. Compare location, owner, completion date and well type before attaching a report to the site. Ecology warns that a mapped well point may not be at the exact location of the well.
A completed well report describes construction details and subsurface information. A Notice of Intent is a start notice for drilling or decommissioning. Ecology explicitly says an NOI is not a permit, certificate, claim or application for a water right. If an NOI number appears in a file, use it to seek the corresponding well report; do not turn it into completion evidence.
What Snohomish asks at the building-permit stage
Snohomish County’s water-supply guidance separates documented water-right permits from permit-exempt wells and says the exempt-well route varies by Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA). It also notes that Ecology and local health requirements continue to apply. For a proposed dwelling, identify the parcel’s WRIA and the county’s applicable evidence route before assuming the state construction report satisfies the land-use or building review. Inside Everett city limits, building permits are City records; see where to find Everett permit records, address archives and plans.
Keep three dates and identifiers apart: the NOI, the well’s reported completion, and the county’s water-supply review for the building application. A report from a nearby parcel or a well drilled before a division of land may require additional identity work. Neither an Ecology map point nor an old construction log is a county approval for a new home.
Suppose an old construction report lists a well on a parent tract, while a present parcel map shows two lots. A shared surname and nearby mapped point are leads, not proof that the well is on the lot being reviewed. Compare the report’s township-range-section and well tag with the later parcel boundary. If a boundary adjustment may explain the mismatch, the Snohomish boundary-line adjustment record guide shows where the recorded adjustment and PDS file diverge. Then ask the county which water-supply evidence applies to the resulting parcel.
Make a three-column note: construction evidence, claimed water source, and building-review evidence. Put the date and identifier of each document in its own column. An NOI with no report leaves construction unconfirmed; a report with no county water-supply decision leaves the building-review question open. Even a well on the correct parcel does not prove a usable quantity, water right or county approval for the proposed dwelling.
The five kinds of water-supply proof Snohomish accepts
State legislation that followed the 2016 Hirst decision took effect on January 19, 2018. Since then, Snohomish County Planning and Development Services (PDS) has asked every building permit that needs drinking water for one of these:
- A commitment letter from an approved water purveyor with capacity to serve the building.
- An Ecology-issued water right permit for uninterruptible potable water. An application for a water right is not accepted as proof.
- An adjudicated water right, which the county itself calls very unusual.
- Snohomish County Health Department approval of an alternative source other than a permit-exempt well.
- A declaration of intent to use a permit-exempt well. That can be a verbal or written statement, an Ecology start card, or a well log from the Health Department.
The fifth route is the only one where a well document is part of the building file, and even there a start card or log only declares the source. It does not replace the WRIA conditions below.
What the WRIA adds to a permit-exempt well file
Find the parcel’s Water Resource Inventory Area with Ecology’s watershed look-up, then match it to the county’s conditions:
- WRIA 3 or 4 (Skagit basins): a county-approved mitigation plan before county permits issue.
- WRIA 5 (Stillaguamish): use within the instream-flow rule, generally under 5,000 gallons per day annual average, plus a letter from an approved purveyor saying it cannot serve the site.
- WRIA 7 or 8 (Snohomish, Cedar/Sammamish): domestic use limited to 950 gallons per day annual average and 350 in a declared drought, a document recorded with the County Auditor on the title, on-site stormwater infiltration where the site allows it, and a $500 fee.
For a well-served home permitted after January 2018 in WRIA 7 or 8, that Auditor document is a record you can look for on its own. PDS requires its recording number before the building permit issues, so if the permit exists but no recording turns up, ask PDS for the recording number tied to that permit. The limits and fee above are as the county page states them; check that page before relying on a current figure.
If the well report is missing
Try the parcel number, tag or NOI number and a broader address or owner variant. Ecology says recording parcel numbers became common from January 1, 2000; an older report may lack that key. No complete starting year for all online well reports is established by these pages. Ecology’s help notes that a narrow quarter-section search can miss a report; repeat it without that field if the first pass is empty. Preserve any existing drilling or pump paperwork and ask Ecology which report or archive route applies to the identified well. For the building file, ask Snohomish County what water-supply evidence is required for that parcel and WRIA. Record a viewer failure separately from a successful no-match search.
If the property also has an on-site sewage system, its septic transfer and as-built records answer a different question. Do not use a septic drawing to fill a gap in well construction or water-supply approval. This guide identifies record routes; it does not determine whether any particular well can serve a building.
Ecology and Snohomish County guidance checked October 20, 2026.