Transcript:
Since Edwin Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells have been drilled in the state.
Many are now so-called orphan wells, wells that have been unused for decades but were never properly plugged and capped.
Counahan: “Some of the wells, because of their age, may only have a pipe sticking out of the ground.”
Dan Counahan is at Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection in the Bureau of Oil and Gas Operations.
He says orphan wells can leak toxic chemicals into groundwater and emit methane – a potent global warming gas – into the atmosphere.
So for decades, the state’s been working to plug orphan wells, which involves placing cement at various depths to seal potential leaks.
Funding from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helped accelerate the effort. Over the past two years, Pennsylvania plugged more than 300 wells. That’s more than they plugged in the entire decade prior, but it’s still just a fraction of the orphan wells in the state.
Counahan: “We have documented over 27,000 abandoned and orphan wells that we have information for, we know the location of.”
So there’s much more work to do to fix the problem in Pennsylvania and beyond.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
