Pennsylvania – Ground Zero for the Orphan Well Crisis
October 5, 2021 – A serious and growing problem has been leaking to the surface for decades, resulting in significant amounts of greenhouse gas pollution and other contaminants harming Pennsylvania’s air, soil, and water. Companies have been extracting oil and gas from drilled wells in Pennsylvania since the 19th century – long before our government attempted to keep track of them or enforce permitting and plugging requirements. As a result, hundreds of thousands of unplugged orphan and abandoned wells dot the landscape, leaking methane, oil, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to this day. State law distinguishes between wells classified as orphan or abandoned. These wells, left behind by defunct companies or with no known owner, are in dire need of remediation and have become a significant liability for state taxpayers. The facts are sobering.
Pennsylvania is estimated to have anywhere from 200,000 to 560,000 orphan and abandoned oil and gas wells. Despite their age, these wells leak significant amounts of methane every year. Methane is up to 87 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeline. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has thus far documented only around 8,700 of these wells given the agency’s limited resources. Orphan wells can be found in strange places: along riverbanks, deep in the woods, even inside people’s homes. The uncontrolled release of gas and liquids from unplugged wells is fouling water supplies, polluting the air, and creating a serious safety hazard for those living nearby.
Although DEP’s efforts to address this problem have been admirable, the agency simply cannot manage this crisis with its current resources. According to the Department, it has only about $400,000 a year and a small grant program to spend on this. Meanwhile, the true costs of plugging wells are staggering. All wells are different and, while DEP has conservatively estimated an average plugging cost of $33,000 per well, costs can easily add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single well.
The solution is much more complicated than simply “capping” a well by placing something on top. The key is to isolate each flow zone, corrosive zone, and water zone to prevent vertical migration of fluids, which is done by injecting cement and placing plugs throughout the wellbore at strategic spots. Without that, you would see significant methane migration in the subsurface (with houses and coal mines occasionally blowing up). Most well plugging programs focus more on addressing emergency conditions as they arise, rather than broadly tackling the problem, which must include a massive undertaking to identify undocumented wells.
So what can be done? Pennsylvania’s expected participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) beginning in early 2022 provides an opportunity. Linking with RGGI is projected to generate hundreds of millions in annual proceeds for Pennsylvania, which can be reinvested in programs to further eliminate air pollution. Without question, orphan well plugging merits a reasonable share of those funds. New technology is available to make accurate estimates of emissions and establish a set of high priority wells. An efficient well-plugging program can tackle these problem wells, plugging up to 1,000 of them per year. Wells that are dry or are leaking very small amounts can be left for later. RGGI funds will likely be available to DEP as early as Q1 2022, and Pennsylvania currently has plenty of bench strength in well plugging manpower, experience, and capability.
At the federal level, President Biden called on Congress in the spring to allocate $16 billion to plug old oil and gas wells and clean up abandoned mines as part of his Build Back Better agenda. When the US Senate passed the $550 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework in early August (by a vote of 69-30), the bill included roughly $5 billion dedicated to plugging orphan wells. Funding at this scale is a great down payment, as Pennsylvania appears to be eligible for up to $600 million over the next ten years. Some of those funds can also be spent on identifying and prioritizing undocumented orphans.
The legislation is now in the House and, consistent with the plans of President Biden and Democratic leadership, its passage is currently linked with the more comprehensive reconciliation package still being negotiated. To be clear, the big, bold climate investments in the reconciliation bill are absolutely critical and necessary. They represent perhaps our last chance to address climate change legislatively this decade. We do not have another decade to waste! Enacting both pieces of legislation would be a historic victory for the country and the people of Pennsylvania on multiple fronts, including the major funds for orphan well plugging.
All in all, cleaning up our air, water and soil while creating good-paying jobs and, most critically, significantly curbing greenhouse gas emissions by documenting and plugging orphan wells is a key priority for Clean Air Council.
Robert M. Routh, Esq.
Public Policy and Regulatory Attorney
rrouth@cleanair.org
