PA Environment Digest Blog: Citizens Voice Editorial: Renew Bonds To Close, Cleanup Conventional Oil, Gas Wells

This editorial first appeared in the Citizens Voice on May 26, 2023--

If you doubt that the coal and railroad industries once dominated the Pennsylvania Legislature, look around.

Evidence abounds, more than 70 years after the end of large-scale mining, that the state government allowed mine operators to pollute with impunity.

Now, as pollutants from abandoned mines gush into streams and culm piles still tower over many towns, too many lawmakers remain reluctant to ensure that extractive industries clean up their messes.

In 2022, the Republican majorities in both legislative houses stripped an independent state board of much of its authority to make some gas drillers accountable for closed wells.

The wells in question are “conventional” shallow vertical wells that tap gas relatively near the surface, rather than the deep, horizontally drilled wells characteristic of the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, 131 shallow conventional wells were drilled in 2021.

To obtain a well permit, a driller must supply a bond to cover closure and cleanup costs, akin to a landlord requiring a security deposit from a prospective tenant. If a driller fails to properly cap a well, the DEP can seize the bond to pay for the work.

Prior to the 2022 law, the state Environmental Quality Board was empowered to review the bond requirements and set new amounts every two years.

But the new law eliminates that authority and freezes the bond cost at $2,500 per well. According to the DEP, the median cost to cap a well is $33,000, and it can be as high as $400,000.

Bonds for the new generation of deep wells range from a minimum of $35,000 to $500,000, depending on technical specifications for each well.

Statewide, there are thousands of uncapped wells from earlier generations of drilling that spew climate-warming methane into the atmosphere and often pose physical dangers.

They will cost billions of taxpayer dollars to cap. And they exist because of an earlier generation of irresponsible legislators who refused to hold drillers responsible.

Now, lawmakers should pass a pending bill to repeal the free pass that lap-dog legislators gave the industry just a year ago.

PA Oil & Gas Public Notice Dashboards:

-- Struggle To Plug Tatonka Oil Co. LLC’s Nancy 13 Conventional Well Leaking Gas, Production Wastewater Since 2018; Citizen Complaint Finds ‘Bubbling’ Gas Well [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities: Permit Notices/Opportunities To Comment - May 20 [PaEN]

PA Oil & Gas Compliance Reports

-- Feature: 60 Years Of Fracking, 20 Years Of Shale Gas: Pennsylvania’s Oil & Gas Industrial Infrastructure Is Hiding In Plain Sight [PaEN]

-- Conventional Oil & Gas Well Owners Failed To File Annual Production/Waste Generation Reports For 61,655 Wells; Attorney General Continues Investigation Of Road Dumping Wastewater [PaEN]

-- DEP Issued 754 Notices Of Violation For Defective Oil & Gas Well Casing, Cementing, The Fundamental Protection Needed To Prevent Gas Migration, Groundwater & Air Contamination, Explosions [PaEN]

-- DEP Report Finds: Conventional Oil & Gas Drillers Routinely Abandon Wells; Fail To Report How Millions Of Gallons Of Waste Is Disposed; And Non-Compliance Is An ‘Acceptable Norm’ [PaEN]

-- DEP 2021 Oil & Gas Program Annual Report Shows Conventional Oil & Gas Operators Received A Record 610 Notices Of Violation For Abandoning Wells Without Plugging Them [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industry Has Record Year: Cost, Criminal Convictions Up; $3.1 Million In Penalties Collected; Record Number Of Violations Issued; Major Compliance Issues Uncovered; Evidence Of Health Impacts Mounts [PaEN]

[Posted: May 26, 2023] PA Environment Digest