In May, state officials and lawmakers gathered at the Heritage Port Amphitheater in Wheeling to celebrate passage of a bill that updated the standards governing how natural gas wells can be cleaned up, approving a less costly alternative.
But the measure doesn’t curb the growth of the state’s responsibility for orphaned wells or prevent the costs from falling onto West Virginians.
In his speech, Gov. Patrick Morrisey spoke of the risks to “surface and groundwater drinking water sources, land and air quality” posed by unplugged, nonproducing wells.
“So, plugging these wells safely and effectively is critical to protecting these resources,” he said.
Morrisey also acknowledged that increased funding to clean up these wells over recent years hasn’t been enough to fix the problem.
If the operator of an abandoned well is unknown or files for bankruptcy, it becomes “orphaned,” and the cleanup falls to the state.
Currently, regulators are responsible for cleaning up more than 6,000 orphaned wells in West Virginia. However, that number is considered to be greatly underestimated as there are tens of thousands more that aren’t documented.
Under the bill passed by the legislature in April, abandoned and orphaned wells can be plugged by piercing the well’s casing and filling it with cement. Previously, West Virginia law required the removal of the well’s entire infrastructure before filling it with cement.
State regulators supported the new plugging method, saying that this will help them stretch state and federal dollars to clean up more orphaned wells.
“This is a real project that will have great benefits to everything,” said Harold Ward, cabinet secretary West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. “It’s simply not a controversial process. This is the right thing to do and the right way to do it.”
The cost of plugging wells
The measure was brought to the Legislature by the DEP as a way to help regulators “use our state and federal dollars in a more efficient manner,” then-General Counsel Jason Wandling told the House Energy Committee in March.
In response to questions about how much the new method could save, agency spokesperson Terry Fletcher wrote in an email that “ costs vary significantly depending on a number of factors, including the condition of the well and how long the work takes.”
Because the new method allows for puncturing damaged well casings instead of the traditional requirement of removing them, it will be faster to plug a well.
“Reducing labor and time can result in meaningful cost efficiencies, particularly when scaled across the state’s large inventory of orphaned wells,” Fletcher said.
“We hope that this will help us get wells plugged for less money than we currently are,” Wandling added.
West Virginia regulators previously estimated it costs about $124,000 to clean up an orphaned well.
Historically, the state has struggled with the funding needed to clean them up. In the past, the state could only afford to remediate one or two wells a year. In recent years, state lawmakers have directed more money to the issues, which has allowed the DEP to plug nearly 80 wells since 2022.
The state has also been able to clean up hundreds of additional wells in recent years with federal funding allocated through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
During the committee meeting when lawmakers took up the bill, David McMahon, the co-founder of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, expressed concern over whether the DEP has adequately studied the new method.
“I want to see what testing was done afterwards,” McMahon told lawmakers in March. “I’d like to know if testing was done recently to see if what they did is still working.”
During his testimony to lawmakers, Wandling responded to some of McMahon’s concerns, adding that the state agency piloted the method with Diversified Energy Company, the largest gas and oil well owner in the country.
In 2021, the DEP allowed Diversified to plug 10 wells using the alternative technique to see if it worked. Ultimately, the agency determined it to be successful despite a complication with one of the test wells, which had to be replugged.
In December, West Virginia landowners reached a $6.5 million settlement with Diversified and EQT Corporation requiring the company to plug some of its abandoned wells at a quicker pace. Diversified owns more than 23,000 wells in West Virginia, and roughly 2,200 of them are abandoned.
Doug Kris, Diversified Energy spokesman, said the company supports the change, which “allows for more efficient, safe, and environmentally protective well plugging.”
Nothing to prevent future orphaned wells
The new well plugging method is “going to do little to nothing to prevent future orphaned wells,” said Ted Boettner, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute.
In an email, spokesperson Drew Galang said that the Governor’s Office “recognizes the risk that orphaned wells pose to the health and safety of West Virginians and our environment and will explore all avenues to solve this longstanding issue.”
For years, advocates have called on lawmakers to pass legislation that would prevent wells from becoming orphaned by asking companies for funding up front to plug wells once they no longer produce oil or gas.
Bills to address those issues have been introduced in both legislative chambers since 2019. However, lawmakers have never taken the measures up.
“They’ve done nothing to stop the bleeding,” said Boettner. “There’s nothing to stop the bleeding because most of the wells in this state do not have enough income left to pay for plugging.”