For decades, Pennsylvania has barely made a dent in stopping pollution from hundreds of thousands of abandoned or orphaned oil and gas wells. Now, the state may soon receive nearly $400 million to tackle one of its most insidious legacy pollution problems.
“It’s a game changer,” said Kurt Klapkowski, director of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Oil & Gas Planning and Program Management.
He was referring to the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was passed by Congress on Nov. 5 and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15. In addition to Pennsylvania's $400 million cut of federal dollars, the state will add matching funds for some projects.
Climate change and pressure to throw a lifeline to communities that long survived on fossil fuel extraction provided a strong tailwind for bipartisan support. The legislation will deliver $4.7 billion nationwide, over the coming decade, to end the ongoing pollution of air, water and soil from abandoned oil and gas wells that pepper the country.
Pennsylvania will get the most of any state from that big new pie to plug old wells, which emit methane and other pollutants that threaten public health and the environment.
To put the funding increase in perspective, consider that Pennsylvania’s Office of Oil and Gas Management has spent a total of $37 million over the last three decades to plug 300 wells — most of them to rectify emergency situations like contaminated water, houses blowing up or methane gas filling up a church.
In contrast, the state Department of Environmental Protection is lining up a batch of 500 wells to plug with just the first $25 million infusion of federal money from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Much of the pollution comes in the form of escaping methane from abandoned natural gas wells. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term — 86 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere when measured over a 20-year period.
Methane is the second-most abundant greenhouse gas, and the process of oil and gas extraction is its largest source. Gas wells emit methane at a much higher rate than oil wells.
Reducing methane has emerged as a top priority around the world as a quick and relatively easy way to reduce greenhouse gases.
A plan to significantly reduce methane emissions — mainly from oil and gas industry leaks — was one of the biggest announcements by the United States at the recent United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Lost and leaking
There is no question that Pennsylvania’s abandoned wells are leaking.
In 2016, Stanford University researcher Mary Kang studied 88 abandoned wells in the state and found that 90% were leaking methane.
A 2016 paper published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences estimated that abandoned wells were leaking 40,000–70,000 metric tons of methane a year, representing 5–8 percent of Pennsylvania’s total human-caused methane emissions.
Other sources include hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas, livestock, fertilizers, industrial processes, wastewater treatment plants and landfills.
Even old plugged wells may be leaking as material deteriorates. Some plugged wells also vent methane without capturing it.
In addition to contributing to climate change, methane can migrate underground and pop out in buildings, or find its way to water, contaminating private and public water supplies.
But it’s not only methane that is a concern.
Oil and gas wells can leach toxic chemicals, briny water, oil and noxious gasses that pose a threat to human health, the environment and wildlife.
Pennsylvania plans to “hit the ground running,” Klapkowski said. State officials, he said, can scarcely believe the huge influx of federal money coming their way.
“That’s like gas on a fire. It accelerates [ending well pollution] in a way that is almost unprecedented.”
The funding in the infrastructure act for addressing abandoned and orphaned wells is in addition to $11.3 billion nationwide for abandoned mine land and water reclamation projects in coal communities over 15 years. [Read more here]
Pennsylvania’s share of coal reclamation funding is anticipated to be $253 million, nearly double what the state received over the past 40 years.
Why so many lost wells?
Pennsylvania is believed to have the most lost and abandoned wells of any state. The estimated number of abandoned wells in Pennsylvania, based on research by the DEP and others, is far from precise — anywhere from 39,000 to 750,000 sites.
The numbers are high partly because the crude oil industry was essentially born in Pennsylvania, in 1859. By 1900, about half of the crude oil on Earth was coming from Pennsylvania.
In those days, when a well ran dry, equipment was moved to another site and the hole in the ground was simply abandoned. A similar scenario played out with natural gas wells, which came onto the scene in the early 1880s.
It wasn’t until 1955 that well owners were required to report their wells to the state. Many of the wells drilled between 1860 and 1955 were lost to history — pipes left in the ground to vent methane or other pollutants, their locations obscured by vegetation or now located in deep woods.
Scrap collectors may have plucked up the metal casings, the most apparent indication of a well’s presence.
Towns, cities, buildings and shopping malls have been built on top of them. Many are discovered during the construction of new housing developments or roads, or the digging of new coal mines and natural gas wells.
Between 1987 and 2015, stray methane gas from abandoned wells was known to contaminate 55 public or private water supplies, according to the DEP.
Landowners who discover wells often don’t report them, erroneously thinking they would be responsible for their cleanup.
It’s no wonder the DEP has an official list of a mere 12,200 known abandoned oil and gas wells, out of a potential three-quarter million. [Read more here.]
Under the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act of 1984, when a well dries up, owners and operators are required to plug them upon abandonment and report it to the DEP. But many have not been plugged. Often, an owner declared bankruptcy when the oil or gas played out.
The operator’s $25,000 blanket bond, a requirement since 1984, was usually inadequate to cover plugging multiple wells, which can cost from $8,000 to $50,000, depending on depth.
Much of the federal money coming to Pennsylvania will be used to plug the thousands of wells already discovered, but some of the money may go to finding undocumented wells and determining if they are leaking methane or other pollutants.
The state is considering using aerial surveys to detect escaping methane gas. Other agencies, such as the Pennsylvania Game Commission, are being asked for field staff who can help look for abandoned wells.
Community officials and environmental groups may be asked to beat the bushes too. “We’re really trying to think about this problem in new ways,” Klapkowski said.
Accessing many of the wells will be hard, and roads may have to be built to get to them.
Help wanted
The DEP is rushing to line up plug-ready wells as it awaits the first wave of funding. [Read more here.]
The agency has already issued two bulletins to the oil and gas industry seeking contractors for plugging jobs — and for related services, such as documenting pollution, site reclamation, and erosion and sediment control.
As of mid-November, nearly 100 companies had responded. Environmental groups and universities could get contracts and find subcontractors to perform the needed work.
“We are looking for help from any quarter. It’s important work,” Klapkowski said.
The first wells to be plugged will be ones with critical environmental problems or safety issues, such as methane venting into the air or briny water or oil leaking into streams, water supplies or aquifers.
In most cases, wells are plugged by removing old metal casing from the wells, which can be 3,000 feet deep or more, and plugging the full length of the shaft with cement or a nonporous gel or slurry.
Pennsylvania officials see the federal well-plugging initiative as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a profound dent in a long-festering environmental wound from fossil fuel extraction.
“This is one of those things where I really look at it as a way to leave the Commonwealth in a better way than we found it,” Klapkowski said.
How to report abandoned oil or gas wells in PA
If you know or suspect the location of an abandoned oil or gas well, report it immediately by calling the appropriate oil and gas office of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
-- Central Office in Harrisburg: 717-772-2199
-- Eastern District in Williamsport: 570-321-6550
-- Northwest District in Meadville: 814-332-6860
-- Southwest District in Pittsburgh: 412-442-4024
Indicate if the suspected well is discharging any substance and try to obtain coordinates using a smartphone, or provide the closest street intersection or address.
According to the DEP, landowners who find an abandoned well on their property are not liable for the costs of plugging it unless they have used it for heating or other home use.
The state strongly encourages landowners to report abandoned wells, both for safety and environmental reasons, and to determine if there is a former owner responsible for plugging it.
[Visit DEP’s Abandoned & Orphan Well Program webpage to learn more.]
(Reprinted from the Chesapeake Bay Journal.)
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