Serving the mid-Island
Water wells on Gabriola Island
Electoral Area B — an island aquifer with no other supply behind it.
Gabriola Island sits over Aquifer 709, fractured sedimentary bedrock with more than a thousand wells on record, a median depth near 105 feet and a median yield around 4.5 US gallons a minute. Recharge is estimated at about 199 mm a year, roughly a fifth of precipitation, and land use is governed by the Islands Trust.
An island aquifer has no upstream. Whatever falls on Gabriola is what the wells draw from, and every well on the island competes for the same recharge — which is why the numbers here matter more than they would on the main island.
What the island's records show
Aquifer 709 has over a thousand wells recorded, giving an unusually good picture for a rural area. The median well sits near 105 feet with a mean closer to 125, and depths on record run from 25 feet to 540. Median yield is around 4.5 US gallons a minute, with a geometric mean nearer 3.8 and a recorded maximum of 54 — a spread wide enough that a neighbour's well tells you very little. Median depth to water is around 20 feet, and three flowing artesian wells are on record.
Recharge is the ceiling
Recharge to the island aquifer is estimated at roughly 199 mm a year, about a fifth of the precipitation that falls on it. That figure is the ceiling on everything else. The Regional District's monitoring showed the island's aquifer below normal heading into summer 2026, alongside 16 of 22 monitored aquifers across the region, and an increasing number of island households now supplement wells with rooftop rainwater collection. A well drilled here is drawing on a budget, not a reservoir.
Salt water, and the two bays
Sea water intrusion has been documented on the island at Silva Bay and Degnen Bay. Elevated iron, manganese and sulphur are recorded in island groundwater, along with hardness. Intrusion is driven by drawdown as much as by proximity — pumping a coastal well harder than the formation replenishes it is the mechanism that pulls salt water in — so on a shoreline lot the pump rate is part of the water quality decision, not separate from it.
Island wells are drilled against a recharge budget and, near the bays, against salt water. Before committing to a depth or a pump rate, get the property looked at.
Nearby service areas
Find out what is under the property.
Free site assessments across Electoral Areas A, B, E and F.