Once I had to argue with an acquaintance who argued that land owners have no right to drill wells on their own territory. Allegedly, this contradicts the existing laws, in particular, the law "On Subsoil".
I was poorly aware of this topic, and therefore decided to check whether this is true or not. The information that was revealed to me turned out to be rather ambiguous. I would like to briefly present it to you. It turns out that drilling seems to be possible, but it seems not. Let's talk about everything in order.
The aforementioned law "On Subsoil" states that all owners or tenants of land plots can create structures underground on their own territory. True, their depth should be less than or equal to 5 meters. From this it follows that the land lying at a depth of over 5 meters and all the benefits that are under her (now I mean water), are not the property of the owner of the site, but belong to the state.
An underwater well is a structure built underground. But who would think to do it less than 5 meters. It turns out that one way or another the law will be violated. And if there is a violation, then there must be a punishment. How severe is it, and should you be afraid of it?
In search of an answer to this question, the same law "On Subsoil" helped me, namely its 49th article. It says in black and white that all persons who have violated the law we are considering must be subject to administrative and even criminal punishment. Among other things, persistent violators are obliged to compensate for material damage caused to the state. So to speak, return the benefits to the owner!
I decided to dig even deeper and undertook to re-read the Civil Code. According to him, a person who owns a land plot has the right of ownership to the surface layer of the land located on the territory of the plot. Also, the owner can dispose of the land itself, and everything that is under it. The main thing is that it does not run counter to the Law on Subsoil. It turns out that this law has an advantage over the Civil Code.
So it turns out that if you decide to drill a normal well on the site, you will certainly break the letter of the law and you may be punished.
However, drawing conclusions, I missed one important nuance - amendments. Since the beginning of 2020, some amendments have been made to the Subsoil Law. According to the amendments, a person can use for personal needs only the water that he has extracted from the first layer of the earth (sandy). The fact is that this water is not suitable for water supply and is not suitable for industrial needs. It turns out that the state has the right to the waters located in the 2nd and 3rd layers.
If you need to drill an artesian well, you first need to obtain a work license. But to dig a well, you can do without permission. If only it does not go deeper than the sand layer.
According to the amendments made to the law, land owners have the right to do the following:
- 1. Use water for domestic purposes only.
- 2. To extract no more than 100 cubic meters of water per day (exceeding the norm threatens with administrative punishment).
- 3. Dig a well or drill a well no more than 30 meters deep.
It can be concluded that it is quite possible to dig a small well on the site and use the water from it for domestic purposes. In this case, neither an appropriate license nor pre-registration is required.
Thank you for reading the article to the end! I will be very happy about your like 👍 and subscribing to the channel.