Scratch

The $4.7 billion program from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is only a small fraction of the billions some say is needed to plug all the ...

“Abandoning these wells continues to be a pervasive business practice of the conventional oil industry.” The infrastructure law money is targeted to plug only the wells state officials have documented. “We’re often required to fish out a fencepost and other trash that is sometimes hundreds of feet below the surface.” There was no record for this well, which had been plunged more than a quarter-mile into the ground, possibly in the 1930s, Plants said, standing below the rig and a portable oil tank as the smell of crude rolled across the site. The state has qualified more than 40 contractors to plug orphaned wells, but that doesn’t mean they’ll take the work. Like many jobs, this one involved building a temporary road to the derelict well and bringing in a 65-foot tall derrick—on a rig that can weigh 75,000 pounds or more—into environmentally sensitive areas. Their effects are clear: The gas and oil they leak contribute to climate change, threaten homes, and are routinely blamed for water contamination. The well sat within 500 feet of residences and had been leaking gas since at least 2011. But the infrastructure law funding only scratches the surface of the orphan well problem. Congress is spending $4.7 billion from last year’s infrastructure law on a five-year program to clean up orphaned wells, maybe tens of thousands of them. They once emptied a gallon of crude from their hot-water heater; another time, tests found such high methane levels in their water that a state inspector warned them, “Don’t have a leisurely bath with a lit candle and a cigar.” Pennsylvania, where the industry was born, has more than any other state—possibly hundreds of thousands.