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Orphan Wells – Their Origin, Their Impact, and What’s Being Done to Stop Them

An orphan well is an unplugged, non-producing, abandoned well left behind by their operators. The reasons for their abandonment can be anything from bankruptcy to poor management. Today, there are over 3.5 million orphan wells in the United States alone and an estimated 29 million globally.

Why should people care? Because these orphan wells are having an incredibly severe impact on the planet as well as posing serious risks to human health. The orphan wells in just the United States are:

Emitting approximately 281 kilotons of methane
Damaging the climate to the same extent as 16 million barrels of crude oil
Consistently leaking – some have been doing so for more than 100 years
Likely to continue growing as companies continue to go under due to financial and economic pressures
Costing millions to plug and seal so they stop causing damage to humans, animals, and the planet
Not easily found – many orphan wells are still unaccounted for due to poor documentation and awareness.

There are two big challenges with orphan wells – they have been left unplugged, and their locations are often unknown. These unplugged wells leak gases like methane into the atmosphere, and they release contaminants such as oil into the water and soil in the area. These leaks and emissions slowly poison the land, which has a serious effect on the well-being of people living nearby and on the local flora and fauna.

Understanding the Problem: The Challenge of Orphan Wells

These wells are considered a super pollutant – they have a direct and serious impact on their environment as well as on the health of the planet. Methane, for example, has more than 80 times the climate-altering potential than carbon dioxide (CO2) in the near term and is the second leading cause of Climate change after CO2, according to the National Wildlife Federation. A recent study in Science Direct puts this into perspective – most methane emissions come from only 10% of orphan wells, particularly from petroleum-sourced wells, coal seams, and methanogenesis. Additionally, other potentially deadly gasses can exist along with the methane. Gasses like Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), which is deadly in low concentrations, or Pentane and Hexane, which are known to be less than healthy to be around.

Approximately 4.6 million Americans are living less than a mile from a potentially harmful, unplugged well that could be leaking methane into the local water supply. This has serious repercussions when it comes to health and wellbeing, as Hanson and Michael Rowe discovered in 2012. The couple endured overpowering fumes and experienced dizziness, nausea, and breathlessness. They reported the leak, but it took more than a year for the problem to be resolved as the original owner of the well had gone bankrupt, and determining responsibility for plugging the well proved complex. Finally, when the orphan well was labeled an environmental emergency, because it was leaking hydrogen sulfide and methane into the environment, it took 40 days to plug it.

The gases that leak from these orphan wells are not just toxic to the environment; they are also flammable. There are documented cases of explosions that have been caused by leaking gases from orphan wells, and this is a risk that will only grow for as long as the wells are left unplugged and untended. Wildfires caused by flammable gases can then devastate a region and its wildlife.

The problem doesn’t stop there. Testing has revealed that water in the region of an orphan well has a significant quantity of benzene in it – a carcinogen. These wells pollute the air, water, and soil, and the toxins directly impact human and animal health, slowly destroying the environment and those who rely on it for their lives and livelihoods.

Quantifying the Impact: Finding and Adopting Orphan Wells

A recent study from Nature found that American oil and natural gas wells are emitting three times more methane gasses than the government estimates. The damage? Approximately $9.3 billion annually. Wildlife habitats are being slowly poisoned, which is affecting wildlife migration, littering the land, and contributing to climate change.

The idea that perhaps birds may not migrate to a specific region anymore may seem small. After all, humans move houses all the time, right? But those birds have migrated to that area for an evolutionary reason, and their arrival has a direct impact on the local flora and insect life. For example, birds reduce an insect population, and if they’re not there, local farmers will have to deal with an increased risk of crop damage. There will also be more rabbits and rats because birds like owls or hawks have moved to another region. One small change has a catastrophic effect on an ecosystem.

It is essential that abandoned wells are dealt with as quickly and effectively as possible and that wells that were plugged years ago are checked for leaks or faulty plugs. Often, the materials used to plug wells in the past were not good quality, and these wells are seeping their toxins into the environment.

Let’s put the statistics around orphan wells into perspective:

35% of orphan wells live just over a mile away from a domestic groundwater well.
$4.7 billion in federal funding is not enough to plug documented orphan wells.
31,737 orphaned wells are within 30 miles of a US national park.
Every State has its own approaches and budgets
The states with the most orphan wells are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Louisiana. In Louisiana, the auditor has said there isn’t enough money to cope with the demands of plugging orphan wells, and 15,000 children under the age of five live within a mile of one of these wells.
The Environmental Defense Fund believes it will cost upwards of $6 billion to plug all the known wells.
200% – that’s the growth in orphan wells in Pennsylvania. In Oklahoma, that number is 1500%.

It has become a national problem, and as awareness of the climate and human impact of these wells grows, things are starting to change.

Finding Solutions: What’s Being Done to Solve the Problem

There is good news. Organizations are paying attention to orphan wells and doing what they can to solve the problem. Research has found that if wells are plugged correctly, they can be used to provide hydrogen and geothermal energy and change the narrative from a climate pollutant to a contributor towards net zero energy solutions.

Our team approaches the management and control of orphan wells in a very careful way. First, the team identifies the well and builds a profile around it. They ask questions about its history and document its characteristics, location, surface ownership, and any existing oil and gas leases. The report is detailed and unpacks whether or not the well qualifies for further analysis by testing the area for GHG emissions, surface conditions, and accessibility. When a well meets all the criteria, it is adopted from the state, and a campaign budget is prepared and launched to raise the funds to plug it.

We work with the state and communities to plug the wells but also focus on restoring the damage the well caused. With a long-term site monitoring plan and a commitment to surface restoration, these wells are transformed.

Changing the Story: What You Can Do to Help

It has become so important to spread awareness around the orphan well problem and how these impact the environment, people, and wildlife. Consider donating to an organization dedicated to plugging orphan wells or undertaking fundraising to help non-profits undertake even more projects.

Plugging orphan wells is everyone’s problem – let’s work together to heal the planet and make a difference #onewellatatime.

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