Secretary Haaland Establishes Orphaned Wells Program Office to Implement Historic Investments from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

1/10/2023                                                                                                                       Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2023

                                                                                                                              Contact: Interior_Press@ios.doi.gov

WASHINGTON — Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland today issued a Secretary’s Order to establish an Orphaned Wells Program Office to ensure effective, accountable and efficient implementation of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s historic investment in orphaned well clean up.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law delivers the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history, including through a $4.7 billion investment to plug orphaned wells. These legacy pollution sites are environmental hazards and jeopardize public health and safety by contaminating groundwater, emitting noxious gases and methane, littering the landscape with rusted and dangerous equipment, and harming wildlife. Secretary's Order 3409 establishes a new Program Office at the Department under the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget to ensure timely and transparent implementation of the new program and to enable better communication with states, Tribes and other partners. The office will be led by Director Kimbra Davis, who has served at the Department since April 2009, with support from staff with deep expertise in orphan well remediation and Tribal engagement.

“Through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are making a historic investment to tackle legacy pollution—the largest in American history. As part of this effort, the Department is standing up a new office to support states, Tribes and federal land managers as they close and remediate orphaned oil and gas wells that pose environmental hazards to communities across the country,” said Secretary Haaland.

Orphaned oil and gas wells pollute backyards, recreation areas, and community spaces across the country. Methane leaking from many of these unplugged wells is a serious safety hazard and is a significant cause of climate change, being more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The historic investments to clean up these hazardous sites will create good-paying union jobs, catalyze economic growth and revitalization, and reduce harmful methane leaks.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $4.7 billion investment is divided into three programs:

• $4.3 billion to be used to plug orphaned wells on state and private lands;  

• $250 million to cap orphaned wells on public lands, including in national parks, national forests, and wildlife refuges; and

• $150 million to cap orphaned wells on Tribal lands.  

This year, the Department has allocated an initial $33 million to clean up 277 orphaned wells in national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges and other public lands, and distributed the first $560 million in initial grants to states to set up well plugging infrastructure and address high-priority wells. Guidance, informed by Tribal consultations and listening sessions, has also been shared to direct Tribes on how to apply for the first $50 million in funding to address orphaned wells on Tribal lands.

Plugging orphaned wells will help advance the goals of the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan, as well as the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, which focuses on spurring economic revitalization in hard-hit energy communities.

 https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-haaland-establishes-orphaned-wells-program-office-implement-historic

Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act

 

December 07, 2022

Sens. Cramer, Lujan Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Develop New Technology to Identify and Plug Orphaned Wells

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) introduced the Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act (AWRRDA). The bill invests in research and development efforts to identify and remediate abandoned gas and oil wells, which can leak methane, contaminate groundwater, create community safety risks, and limit productive use of land. Last year, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included Senator Cramer and Lujan’s REGROW Act, which built on North Dakota’s program to put displaced energy workers back to work plugging orphaned wells. However, methods for identifying, repurposing, and remediating abandoned wells can be improved.

“North Dakota has led by example remediating abandoned wells and further progress has been made with the passage of the REGROW Act. Our bill keeps this momentum going by investing in new and innovative ways to track the problem and ultimately mitigate the damage so land is returned to productive use, emissions are reduced, and safety issues are addressed,” said Senator Cramer.

“In New Mexico and across the country, abandoned wells pose serious environmental harm and public health risks that threaten the health of our communities. That’s why our REGROW Act works to cut methane emissions and lessen public health risks, but more research and development is needed to help identify the thousands of abandoned wells nationwide,” said Senator Luján. “I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation to build upon our work in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to further develop technology to identify and plug abandoned wells to prevent public health risks, create jobs, and boost economic growth.” Read more:https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/sens-cramer-lujan-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-develop-new-technology-to-identify-and-plug-orphaned-wells

DEP Announces Effective Date of Volatile Organic Compound Regulations for Conventional Oil and Gas Industry

 

12/2/2022
 

Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is providing notice that the emergency certified final-omitted rulemaking to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from conventional oil and gas sources is final and effective as of today, December 2, 2022.

On November 30, the Environmental Quality Board adopted the emergency certified final-omitted rulemaking. On December 1, the rulemaking was deposited in and filed with the Legislative Reference Bureau. The rulemaking is final and effective upon this notice.

Under the federal Clean Air Act (CAA), Pennsylvania has until December 16 to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a State Implementation Plan, including regulations covering VOC emissions for all required oil and gas sources.

Governor Tom Wolf determined that this emergency certified final-omitted rulemaking is necessary to ensure the commonwealth complies with the CAA and with Pennsylvania’s Air Pollution Control Act. The emergency rulemaking was undertaken after the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee voted to review the final-omitted version of the regulation, causing a delay in the regulatory process that would extend beyond the December 16 deadline. Read more here.

 

 

The regulatory documents are available at http://www.irrc.state.pa.us/docs/3363/AGENCY/3363FO.pdf and https://www.dep.pa.gov/.../Envir.../Pages/2022-Meetings.aspx

Still no word from authorities on what caused explosion of Allegany home

ALLEGANY, N.Y. — In the aftermath of an explosion on Monday that destroyed the Allegany home of Betty Jo and Ronald Volz, neighbors, relatives and friends have pitched in to help gather up items and memorabilia strewn about their property.

Meanwhile, Gordon Scott, spokesperson for the Allegany Fire Department, had no updates to report Tuesday on what fire investigation teams believe caused the explosion at the 3699 W. Branch Road property at 9:43 a.m. Monday.

The incident is currently being investigated by the Allegany Fire Investigation Team and the Cattaraugus County Fire Investigation Team.

The couple and their son, who had resided in the house, were not home at the time of the blast. read more...

http://www.bradfordera.com/news/local/still-no-word-from-authorities-on-what-caused-explosion-of/article_6620ed56-ed1f-5aa5-90fa-47ff8bbbe478.html

UN chief appeals to G7 leaders for ‘strong commitment’ and political will to tackle climate emergency

UN chief appeals to G7 leaders for ‘strong commitment’ and political will to tackle climate emergency

This was the urgent message
delivered on Twitter from Biarritz, France, where the UN chief has been
meeting for the past two days with G7 leaders to mobilize action ahead
of his Climate Action Summit next month in New York.  


Speaking to reporters, Mr. Guterres said the UN Summit – and the need for concrete action – come against the backdrop of a “dramatic climate emergency,” with the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
reporting the 2015 to 2019 are on track to be the five hottest years
ever recorded, and historically high concentrations of C02 in the
atmosphere.


And with Greenland’s ice melting, and record-setting fires blazing
from the Arctic to Alaska and the Amazon, the Secretary-General said,
“we are much worse than what we were during Paris,” referring to the
2015 conference in the French capital that give birth to the landmark climate accord aimed at easing global warming and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.


He said that recent scientific evidence provided by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
has made clear that “we absolutely need to keep the rise of temperature
to 1.5 degrees Celsius to the end of the century and to be carbon
neutral in 2050 and to have a 45 per cent reduction of emissions by
2030.”  


“And so, it’s absolutely essential that countries commit themselves
to increase what was promised in Paris because what was promised [there]
is not enough,” said Mr. Guterres, calling for more ambition and more
commitment to that end.


The UN chief said society is mobilizing, as well as the world’s
youth, “and we want to have countries coming to New York and being able
to commit to be carbon neutral in 2050, being able to increase
substantially their ambition in the Nationally Determined Contributions to climate action that have to be reviewed in 2020.”  Read more

DEP Orders Well Operators to Plug 1,058 Abandoned Wells Statewide

DEP Orders Well Operators to Plug 1,058 Abandoned Wells Statewide: Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued administrative orders requiring three oil and gas companies—Alliance Petroleum Corporation (Alliance), XTO Energy Inc. (XTO), and CNX Gas Company LLC (CNX)—to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania.

DEP Reaches Settlement on Abandoned Wells

DEP Reaches Settlement on Abandoned Wells

Agreement secures historic bonding for abandoned oil and gas wells

DEP Newsroom

3/11/2019

Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has announced a settlement with Diversified Gas & Oil Corporation and Diversified Oil & Gas, LLC (collectively referred to as Diversified) and Alliance Petroleum Co LLC (Alliance) over well plugging violations in 23 Pennsylvania counties. 

“This agreement is a win for the commonwealth because it ensures that over 1,400 oil and gas wells are properly maintained or plugged and that these operators, not Pennsylvania citizens, bear the full cost of operating or plugging them,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell. 

Diversified and Alliance have agreed to a $7 million surety bond for the wells covered by this settlement, plus an additional $20,000 to $30,000 bond for each abandoned or nonproducing oil and gas well acquired in the future. Under current law, adopted in 2012 as an amendment to Pennsylvania's Fiscal Code, conventional oil and gas operators such as Diversified and Alliance are only required to secure $25,000 of blanket bonding to cover all of their wells, which in the case of the two companies, amounts to bonding of approximately $2 per well. The performance bonding negotiated in this settlement is closer to actual plugging costs that can begin around $20,000 per well and go much higher depending on well and site conditions.  

With this Consent Order and Agreement (COA) in place, DEP has approved pending transfers of non-producing mostly conventional oil and gas wells to Alliance and Diversified. The COA allows some wells to be put back into production, so long as minimum production levels are maintained, and sets a plugging and restoration schedule for non-producing wells of 15 years while prioritizing the plugging of wells that pose health, safety, and/or environmental threats. The COA may be extended for an additional 5 years subject to additional bonding of $30,000 per well for wells to be plugged during the extension. 

The Oil and Gas Act requires owners and operators to plug wells upon abandonment. In July 2018, DEP issued orders to Alliance, XTO Energy Inc. (XTO), and CNX Gas Company LLC (CNX) to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across the state—based on required self-reporting of well production data—and held pending transfers of said wells. Those wells, along with wells that Diversified also reported as non-producing, make up the approximately 1400 wells specifically addressed in in the COA. Alliance, XTO, and CNX appealed DEP’s orders to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board. 

Pennsylvania has over 8,000 orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells on its inventory and hundreds of thousands of legacy wells may be unaccounted for, posing a major financial liability and environmental, public health, and safety risk.

The signed COA document can be viewed at http://files.dep.state.pa.us/Newsroom/NewsroomPortalFiles/DiversifiedCOA.PDF.

Policy to practice—how energy policy drives investment in Minnesota comm...

Clean energy solutions—benefiting local economies and public health

Texas Democrats caught between climate change and the energy economy

James Osborne Feb. 5, 2019 Updated: Feb. 5, 2019 9:59 a.m.  

 

 

WASHINGTON - Houston Democrat Lizzie Fletcher was elected to Congress last November as part of a progressive groundswell against President Donald Trump, winning over a stretch of wealthy Houston suburbs where the oil industry has long reigned supreme and Democrats had not won an election since the late 1960s.

But within a month of her taking office, Democrats’ potential headwinds in suburban Texas are in full view as a proposal from the party’s progressive wing to rapidly shift the United States away from fossil fuels gains momentum amidst increasingly dire forecasts on climate change. Read more.

A 14-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico verges on becoming one of the worst in U.S. history

NEW ORLEANS — An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.

Between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from a site 12 miles off the Louisiana coast since 2004, when an oil-production platform owned by Taylor Energy sank in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan. Many of the wells have not been capped, and federal officials estimate that the spill could continue through this century. With no fix in sight, the Taylor offshore spill is threatening to overtake BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster as the largest ever. 

Read more.

Orphan Wells Plague, Feds Lag Behind State

Kevin Killough, Outliers News Posted On September 25, 2018


Bill and Marge West farm out near Arvada on land originally homesteaded by Bill West’s dad in 1919.
“We’re about the last farmers in Campbell County. Everyone else quit,” Bill West said.
With a miniature schnauzer on his lap, he drove around his property pointing out all the orphan wells that pepper his land. There are nearly 100 of them, and none of them have been reclaimed yet.
“We’re going to be one of the last ones they clean up, I suppose,” he said.
Not only are these wells crowded with noxious weeds and a hazard for West’s farm equipment, there’s a potential for groundwater contamination. Read more:
 https://county17.com/2018/09/25/orphan-wells-plague-feds-lag-behind-state/

Orphan Wells: States Wrestle With Soaring Costs For Oil & Gas Industry Mess

Brittany Patterson / Ohio Valley ReSource

William Suan is no stranger to the problems abandoned oil and gas wells can cause.
“It's just an eyesore,” he said, standing inside a barn on his cattle ranch near Lost Creek, West Virginia. “I had to fence one off because it's leaking now.”
There are five inactive wells on his land, most installed in the '60s and '70s, and the companies that owned the wells have long since gone out of business.
On a recent rainy Monday, Suan treks down a muddy hill on the backside of his property. Hidden in the wooded thicket is a three-foot-tall rusted tube jutting out of the ground.
A soft bubbling sound emanates from the well.

http://www.wvpublic.org/post/orphan-wells-states-wrestle-soaring-costs-oil-gas-industry-mess#stream/0

Tennessee Oil Region 1877

 

Read more: https://archive.org/stream/oilregionoftenne00tenn#page/4

Hickenlooper orders remediation of orphaned oil and gas wells

July 25, 2018

By Jake Altinger

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed an executive order on July 18 intended to address safety issues at over 500 orphaned wells and fracking sites. The move follows a review Hickenlooper ordered after a house explosion caused by gas leaking from an orphaned fracking well killed Joey Irwin and Mark Martinez and severely injured Erin Martinez in Firestone in 2017.

"That tragedy was a catalyst that compels us to improve the safety of Colorado's oil and gas industry," Hickenlooper said in a press release announcing the order.
The executive order aims to reduce the number of "high- and medium-priority orphaned wells and orphaned sites to zero"; enlist the oil and gas industry in plugging, remediating and reclaiming the sites; and create "a system of financial assurance that prevents future orphaned wells and orphaned sites by providing sufficient funding for plugging, remediation and reclamation activities."
Read more:
https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/hickenlooper-orders-remediation-of-orphaned-oil-and-gas-wells/Content?oid=13995939