PA Environment Digest Blog: DEP So Far In 2024: 6,907 Violations Issued To Owners Of Conventional Oil & Gas Wells - 153% More Than In 2021; 833 Violations For Abandoning Their Wells -- Exceeding All Of 2023

As of November 15, the Department of Environmental Protection issued owners of conventional oil and gas wells 6,907 violations for violating state laws and regulations, exceeding the 6,860 violations issued in all of 2023. And, there are five+ weeks left in 2024.

These included 833 violations for abandoning and not plugging their wells, again exceeding the 512 abandoned well violations issued in all of 2023 to conventional well owners. Read more here.

And these trends are not encouraging.

DEP’s 2022 Oil and Gas Annual Report said 5,416 notices of violation were issued to conventional operators in 2022 and 4,514 violations in 2021 and in 2015, DEP issued just 1,024 violations to conventional operators. Read more here.

The violations so far in 2024 are 153% above the total in 2021-- just three years ago.

Despite the dramatic increase in violations issued, DEP has only seen an increase in noncompliance, confirming yet again its conclusion that the conventional oil and gas industry has a culture where non-compliance is an “acceptable norm.” Read more here

Abandoning wells to avoid the financial responsibility for plugging them and ignoring orders and violations from DEP is rampant in the industry as well.

Paper Is Flying

DEP has stepped up its game in issuing violations as noted above, but these actions are not denting the tsunami of conventional well owner noncompliance that is building higher and higher every year.

Just this year on abandoned wells DEP increased its enforcement actions--

-- D & B Gas Production LLC was issued violations for abandoning 110 conventional wells [Read more here]

-- Median Resource Development Co LLC was issued violations for abandoning 101 conventional wells [Read more here]

-- John B. Best for 30 conventional wells [Read more here] following up on 64 violations for abandoned wells issued in 2023 [Read more here]

-- Quaker State Corp [Pennzoil Brand] abandoned 12,505 conventional wells when they left the state and DEP has been working with a consultant-- Arcadis.us-- this year to try to locate some of those wells. [Read more here]

-- Environmental Defense Fund, Moms Clean Air Force and DEP are cooperating on a project to test the use of drones, remote sensing and boots on the ground to locate previously undocumented abandoned conventional oil and gas wells in Clarion, McKean and Venango counties. Part of the process will be to later identify potentially responsible parties, if known. Read more here.

-- Stonehaven Energy MGT Co LLC was sent notices of violation for well abandonment that were “return to sender.” The company owns 727 conventional wells. [Read more here]

So far, DEP has identified over 27,000 orphaned and abandoned wells and is prioritizing those posing the highest risks to be plugged primarily with the federal funding. Read more here.

There may be as many as 250,000 abandoned conventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. No one knows for sure. Read more here.

Conventional oil and gas wells account for 80% of the methane emissions from the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania because well owners have done little or nothing to control those emissions. Read more here.

The conventional oil and gas industry opposes spending any federal or state money on finding more wells they abandoned.

“DEP already knows of nearly 30,000 wells which DEP used to justify its application to the feds. Even if the DEP implements my cost-saving suggestions, the federal money will plug only a small portion of those 30,000 wells,” said Arthur Stewart from Cameron Energy and the PA Grade Crude Oil Coalition at a Senate hearing in September. Read more here.

Failing Behind

DEP is spending $45 million dollars (or so) in federal and state taxpayer funds to plug wells abandoned by conventional well owners-- 270 as of October 23. Read more here

DEP was just approved to get $75 million more in federal taxpayer funding.

Even with what DEP has often said is a 50 year project to plug abandoned wells left behind by conventional well owners, Pennsylvania is still falling behind as hundreds more wells are abandoned every year.

What’s The Next Step?

The multi-billion dollar question for taxpayers who have to foot this well plugging bill instead of the conventional industry is-- what are the next steps to reverse this culture of noncompliance in the conventional oil and gas well industry?

Stronger Laws Needed

The Senate and House have repeatedly failed to pass any meaningful change to law to stem this tide of this noncompliance and in fact have actively blocked any changes in financial assurance and bonding to have conventional well owners take responsibility for plugging their wells. Read more here.

In November 2023, Gov. Shapiro made sharp comments about the need for stronger laws to deal with the ‘corporate greed’ that lets conventional oil and gas well owners get away with abandoning wells for too long. Read more here.

“A company that rolled into town with big promises, then rolled right back out as soon as the money dried up, leaving the local community left to hold the bag, to clean up the mess that they left behind.

“Today, Pennsylvania is now facing the consequences of this corporate greed, of this legacy, of an industry that made a buck off of our natural resources and got away with abandoning gas wells without properly plugging them.

“It's estimated that there are more than 350,000 wells like this one across our Commonwealth, orphaned and abandoned.

“We are fighting back against this legacy of corporate greed I mentioned before, of an industry that just simply got away with abandoning wells for far too long.

“My administration is holding companies that walk away from unplugged wells accountable.

“I've directed the Department of Environmental Protection to take any and all necessary enforcement actions against these companies to be able to recover what we can from them to support this important work.

“We will aggressively pursue these operators that abandon their responsibilities and do our best to make sure they pay what they owe.

“Taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill just because a company thought it could get away with cutting corners, whether that's taxpayers at the federal level or state level.

“It should be the corporate greedy folks who are held accountable, not the taxpayers.”

In response to a question from the media at that same event in November 2023, Gov. Shapiro said this on the need for stronger state environmental laws--

“I'd like to see our state laws be much stronger when it comes to being able to tackle pollution and contamination left behind by greedy executives.

“Look, I was Attorney General for six years prior to being governor, I haven't met too many greedy corporate executives who are happy to pay up, but I'm pretty damn dogged.

“We will go after them and we will hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

“You are correct in identifying the fact that our laws could be strengthened, that the dollars required when industry comes in for bonding and what have you, should be increased and we need to do a better job going forward in Pennsylvania to hold polluters accountable and to make sure that that imbalance that exists between the power of corporations and the power of the people gets rebalanced.

“That's something I've focused on throughout my whole career, and I'm going to continue to do that work as governor.” Read more here.

Resource Links - Conventional Well Noncompliance:

-- DEP Issued Record 6,860 Notices Of Violation To Conventional Oil & Gas Operators In 2023-- Nearly 52% More Than In 2021; ‘Culture Of Non-Compliance’ Continues [PaEN]

-- DEP Imposed $422,365 In Penalties On 14 Conventional Oil & Gas Well Operators In 2023 For Abandoning Wells, Spills, Venting Gas; 93 Operators Cited For Abandoning 271 Wells [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 - 12.29.22]

-- Gov. Shapiro: We Need Stronger Laws To Deal With The ‘Corporate Greed’ That Let Oil & Gas Operators Get Away With Abandoning Wells For Far Too Long [PaEN - 10.19.23]

-- PUC Approves Emergency Order Appointing Aqua Pennsylvania Temporary Operator For 6 Rhodes Estate Water Companies As Fallout Continues From Conventional Oil Well Wastewater Spill In Venango County [10.30.24]

-- The Derrick - Randy Bartley: Priority To Plug Old Conventional Oil, Gas Wells Deepens For DEP [PDF of Article] [11.26.24]

-- The Derrick - Randy Bartley: Plugging A Problem Abandoned Conventional Gas Well [PDF of Article] [11.25.24]

-- Democrats On House Environmental Committee Report Out Bill To Help Prevent The Routine Abandonment Of 561 Conventional Oil/Gas Wells A Year [PaEN -5.23.23]

-- House Hearing: Let’s Work Together To Make Conventional Oil & Gas Industry Practices Cleaner, Respect Property Rights, Protect Taxpayers And Prevent New Abandoned Wells [PaEN - 4.24.23]

-- House Committee Reports Out Bills To Ban Road Dumping Conventional Oil & Gas Wastewater; Prohibit Use Of PFAS 'Forever Chemicals’ In Consumer Products [PaEN - 6.11.24]