"PITTSBURGH — State environmental regulators have spent years ringing alarms about the scourge of abandoned oil and gas wells littering Pennsylvania’s landscape. The biggest hurdle has been getting funding to find and plug them before they fall into unmanageable decay.
With the new federal infrastructure law, Pennsylvania will have more money for well plugging than the state has ever seen. The next challenge is sorting out how to spend it.
The state Department of Environmental Protection estimates that Pennsylvania could be eligible for as much as $395 million for finding and plugging abandoned wells over the next decade — or 10 times as much money as the state has spent on orphan-well plugging over the past 30 years.
That much money could pay to seal off as many as 16,000 open, ownerless wells that pose environmental and public safety risks, according to the agency’s projections."
Laura Legere and Anya Litvak report for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 18, 2021.
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