What This Guide Is (and Isn't)
Most well-water pages tell you what should be in your water based on geology. This one shows what's actually on record. We pulled every water well record for Niagara Region from the Ontario Water Well Information System (WWIS) — 18,317 wells across all 12 municipalities, records through June 2026 — and counted what drillers wrote down: how deep the wells go, whether they finished in bedrock or overburden, and what kind of water they found.
That makes this a genuinely useful starting point if you're buying a rural property, wondering how your neighbours' wells compare, or just curious what's under your concession road. It does not replace a water test: well chemistry varies lot to lot, and these are driller observations, not lab results. For treatment options, testing locations, and costs, see our Niagara Region well water guide.
Niagara's Wells at a Glance
The table below summarizes all 12 municipalities. Bedrock share is among wells with usable depth records. "Typical range" is the middle 80% of recorded depths (p10–p90) — where most wells in that municipality actually fall.
| Municipality | Well records | Median depth | Typical range | Bedrock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Erie | 1,477 | 32 ft | 15–67 ft | 60% |
| Grimsby | 988 | 35 ft | 16–68 ft | 53% |
| Lincoln | 1,643 | 48 ft | 17–111 ft | 57% |
| Niagara Falls* | 2,199 | 27 ft | 15–81 ft | 23% |
| Niagara-on-the-Lake | 1,541 | 60 ft | 18–96 ft | 47% |
| Pelham | 1,358 | 109 ft | 22–208 ft | 46% |
| Port Colborne | 1,653 | 30 ft | 15–65 ft | 64% |
| St. Catharines* | 2,197 | 25 ft | 15–103 ft | 16% |
| Thorold | 1,222 | 47 ft | 19–117 ft | 44% |
| Wainfleet | 941 | 45 ft | 22–135 ft | 66% |
| Welland* | 1,354 | 20 ft | 15–90 ft | 8% |
| West Lincoln | 1,744 | 48 ft | 24–101 ft | 68% |
*In Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, and Welland, most records are monitoring and test wells drilled for construction and environmental work — not homeowner drinking-water wells. Their numbers describe that population. See the township notes below.
Township-by-Township: What the Records Show
Water-kind figures below are phrased the way the data supports: "drillers noted sulfur in 184 of 1,166 records" — a count of observations, not a prevalence estimate. Where drillers left the field blank or marked a well untested, that tells us nothing about the water.
Fort Erie
1,477 well records. Median depth 32 ft, with most wells falling between 15 and 67 ft. About 60% finished in bedrock, 40% in overburden. Drillers noted sulfur in 184 of 1,166 water-found records and fresh water in 742; salty water appeared just once. Well logs are dominated by clay (76% of logged wells) and limestone (65%), with limestone named as the bedrock in 877 wells.
Grimsby
988 well records. Median depth 35 ft, typical range 16–68 ft. About 53% bedrock, 47% overburden. Drillers noted sulfur in 63 of 756 water-found records; fresh water in 419. Clay (79%) and limestone (47%) dominate the logs, with shale named as bedrock in 244 wells.
Lincoln
1,643 well records. Median depth 48 ft, typical range 17–111 ft. About 57% bedrock, 43% overburden. The standout here: drillers noted salty water in 79 of 1,320 records (6.0%) — the highest salty share in Niagara — and sulfur in 35. Shale was named as bedrock in 587 wells, limestone in 487.
Niagara Falls
2,199 well records — read this one carefully. Most are monitoring and test wells (721 monitoring, 297 monitoring/test hole, 119 test hole) versus 325 domestic wells, so these numbers describe the monitoring-well population, not homeowner wells. Median depth 27 ft, typical range 15–81 ft; about 23% bedrock. Drillers noted sulfur in 101 of 1,301 water-found records and fresh water in 376.
Niagara-on-the-Lake
1,541 well records. Median depth 60 ft, typical range 18–96 ft. About 47% bedrock, 53% overburden. Drillers noted salty water in 43 of 1,203 records (3.6%) but sulfur in only 4. Shale dominates the bedrock names (707 wells) — a different underground picture than the limestone-heavy south.
Pelham
1,358 well records. Median depth 109 ft — the deepest median in Niagara — with a typical range of 22–208 ft. About 46% bedrock. The wide range reflects Pelham's transition-zone geology: shallow overburden wells and deep bedrock wells side by side. Drillers noted sulfur in 63 of 1,147 water-found records; fresh water in 889.
Port Colborne
1,653 well records. Median depth 30 ft, typical range 15–65 ft. About 64% bedrock, 36% overburden. Drillers noted sulfur in 201 of 1,224 records (16.4%) and fresh water in 797. Limestone was named as bedrock in 1,009 wells — the highest limestone count in the region.
St. Catharines
2,197 well records — same caution as Niagara Falls. Most are monitoring and test wells (665 monitoring, 345 monitoring/test hole, 173 test hole) versus 254 domestic wells. Median depth 25 ft, typical range 15–103 ft; about 16% bedrock. Drillers noted sulfur in just 7 of 1,270 records and salty water in 31. Don't draw homeowner conclusions from this one.
Thorold
1,222 well records. Median depth 47 ft, typical range 19–117 ft. About 44% bedrock, 56% overburden. Drillers noted sulfur in 46 of 936 water-found records; fresh water in 535. Clay appears in 88% of well logs — the highest clay share in Niagara.
Wainfleet
941 well records. Median depth 45 ft, typical range 22–135 ft. About 66% bedrock. Drillers noted sulfur in 172 of 861 records (20.0%) — the highest sulfur share in Niagara — and fresh water in 556. Limestone appears in 66% of well logs. One nuance: the median includes many older shallow wells, and modern inland drilled wells typically run deeper; our Niagara guide explains the inland vs. lakeshore split.
Welland
1,354 well records — mostly monitoring and test wells (541 monitoring, 203 monitoring/test hole, 113 test hole) versus only 67 domestic wells. Median depth 20 ft, typical range 15–90 ft; just 8% bedrock — the lowest in Niagara, reflecting the thick clay plain. Drillers noted sulfur in 14 of 729 records. Homeowner takeaways: limited.
West Lincoln
1,744 well records. Median depth 48 ft, typical range 24–101 ft. About 68% bedrock — the highest bedrock share in Niagara. Drillers noted sulfur in 155 of 1,533 records (10.1%) and "mineral" water in 110. Clay appears in 96% of well logs; limestone was named as bedrock in 813 wells.
What This Data Can't Tell You
A data page that hides its blind spots isn't a data page. Here's what the well records don't cover:
- Iron — zero mentions. The driller "iron" flag appears 0 times across all 18,317 Niagara records. This dataset cannot tell you anything about iron. The rust staining Niagara homeowners deal with is documented through field testing and homeowner reports (see our Niagara guide), not through WWIS.
- Hardness — not recorded at all. WWIS has no hardness field. You won't find township hardness numbers on this page, because publishing them would mean making them up. Hardness figures elsewhere on this site come from treatment experience and lab testing, not from well records.
- The three urban municipalities are mostly monitoring wells. In St. Catharines, Welland, and Niagara Falls, the records are dominated by monitoring and test wells drilled for construction and environmental work — not homeowner drinking-water wells. Their depth and water-kind distributions describe that population.
- Water-kind notes are sparse observations, not lab results. A driller jotting "sulfur" on a form is not a chemistry panel. A township with few sulfur flags is not a township without sulfur — absence of a flag is not evidence of absence.
- The records are vintage-heavy. They span 1899–2026, and 34.8% of dated wells were completed before 1980. Old shallow dug wells pull medians down; modern drilling practice looks different. These distributions describe wells that were drilled, not wells you should drill.
Methodology
Source: Ontario Water Well Information System (WWIS), 2026a release — records through June 30, 2026 — via Ontario's open data catalogue, under the Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Niagara boundary: historic Lincoln County (code 38) plus Welland County (code 66) well records, which together cover all 12 lower-tier municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Niagara. Municipalities were assigned using the Ministry's own township code descriptions; historic township boundaries don't perfectly match modern municipal lines.
Depths: verified as metres in the source extract and converted to feet (×3.28084), the unit Ontario drillers and homeowners use. Implausible depths (zero, negative, or over ~6,560 ft) were excluded from depth statistics. "Typical range" is the middle 80% of valid depths (p10–p90).
Bedrock vs. overburden: a well counts as bedrock where a recorded bedrock contact sits above the well's total depth; overburden where it doesn't. Wells without usable depth data are excluded from the share.
Water-kind flags: from the driller's "water found" pick-list (fresh, sulfur, salty, mineral, etc.), counted as distinct wells mentioning each kind at least once. No filtering by well use was applied, so monitoring, test, and abandoned wells are included in headline counts.
Ontario notes that well records inherit inaccuracies from the submitted forms — locations, depths, and descriptions may contain contractor or data-entry errors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this data tell me what's in my own well?
No. Township aggregates describe what drillers recorded across hundreds or thousands of wells — they can't describe your lot. Groundwater chemistry varies from one concession road to the next, and sometimes between neighbouring properties. The only way to know what's in your well is a water test: Ontario offers free bacterial testing through Public Health Ontario, and a chemistry screening covers the mineral issues (hardness, iron, sulfur) the free test doesn't. Our testing guide walks through both.
Why are there no iron or hardness numbers here?
Because the dataset doesn't contain them. WWIS has no hardness field, and the driller "iron" flag appears zero times across all 18,317 Niagara records. We'd rather show you an honest gap than a fabricated number. Iron staining and hardness are real and common in Niagara — they're covered on our Niagara guide from treatment experience and field testing, not from these records.
My water smells like sulfur, but my township's count looks low. Why?
The sulfur counts are sparse driller observations, not a survey. Many records are decades old, many wells were never tested for sulfur at all, and drillers didn't always write down what they noticed. A low flag count means "rarely written down," not "rarely present." If your water smells like rotten eggs, trust your nose over the table — and see what causes sulfur smell and what fixes it.
How deep should I drill a new well?
These numbers describe wells that were already drilled — many of them decades ago, when shallow dug wells were common. They're not a recommendation and not a guarantee. Depth for a new well depends on your lot's geology, the aquifer your driller targets, and current regulations. Talk to a licensed well contractor, who can look at nearby modern well records for your specific area.
Where does this data come from, and can I trust it?
It comes from the Ontario Water Well Information System (WWIS), the province's official archive of water well records, 2026a release (records through June 30, 2026), published under the Open Government Licence – Ontario. It's the best public record of drilled wells that exists — and Ontario itself warns that records inherit errors from the original contractor forms. Treat it as strong evidence about drilling patterns and weak evidence about water chemistry.
About this site: Ontario Well Water is a referral service. We publish free guides like this one and, when asked, connect homeowners with independent local water-treatment contractors. We don't drill wells or install equipment.
Keep reading: Niagara Region well water guide · Complete testing guide · Wainfleet · West Lincoln · Pelham · Fort Erie · Port Colborne