Abandoned wells pose a risk to the environment, but no one knows how many there are

Utah's abandoned oil and gas wells

As seen above the majority of wells – be it temporarily abandoned or shut-in – can be found in Uintah County. Moreover, counties in the southeast of Utah don't have or at least don't know of any abandoned wells in their area. There may be various reasons for this, the main one: Operators are generally not required to notify governmental bodies when they place a well in shut-in status. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GOA) of this May, officials noted that it is difficult for field offices to identify all shut-in wells in order to review them. 'Officials (...) told us that identifying when a well becomes shut-in is challenging unless inspectors are able to physically find the well.'

A shut-in well is a well that is temporarily plugged but capable of producing oil or gas in the future. The well is secured, but easily re-opened. A well may be shut in due to poor market conditions, inadequate well maintenance and repairing, or lack of equipment to complete it, among other reasons. In contrast to temporarily abandoned wells the well review policy doesn't contain any directives for shut-in wells, whereas an operator is obliged to conduct well integrity testing prior to placing a well in temporarily abandoned status.

However, there are many cases in which wells are not properly plugged before being abandoned. This is more common when oil prices fall rapidly, making many wells uneconomical, as in the 1980s, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2014 downturn. Events like these often cause small companies to go bankrupt leaving their wells 'orphaned'. There are different legal definitions of what constitutes an 'orphaned well', essentially it means that it's impossibe to determine an owner of the well. Utah may not have a database regarding its orphaned wells like Wyoming but as of December 2018 there were 2294 shut-in wells compared to 64 temporarily abandoned ones. The majority of the former one was operated by the Newfield Production Company, an oil company based in Denver.

The beforementioned report from the GOA had examined the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) handling of gas and oil wells in general. As part of the Department of the Interior the BLM manages leases for drilling and fracking as well as selling the rights to public lands. According to the report the BLM lacks consistent procedures for reviewing wells and bonds, has not systematically tracked data on cleanup expenses and used inaccurate data to generate its reviews. The bureau also faces 'challenges' in managing its potential oil and gas well liabilities, including identifying and managing certain inactive wells. Keeping track of abandoned wells is a low priority according to Rob Jackson, a researcher at Stanford University who talked to NPR in 2016. Across the U.S., from Pennsylvania to Texas to California, there are millions of abandoned wells, though. 'When a state sees a well is plugged, they typically put a check mark by that well in a database, or in a file somewhere, and they don't do anything for the most part', says Jackson.

This is particuliarily questionable since wells in shut-in status have the potential to become orphaned wells which are in turn more likely to leak pollutants such as methane gas. The greenhouse gas is particularly common in the gas and oil industry. It can contaminate groundwater and even cause explosions. Combining data from the Census Bureau with the known locations of abandoned and shut-in wells across Utah showed that people in less populated areas and with little income are more likely to live within one mile to at least one of these wells. In total, 32 small towns were affected by at least 56 wells.

Similiar studies have been done by the L.A. County in early 2018 examining the risks oil and gas wells can pose to public health. They range from respiratory health affects to nausea, skin rashes and to increased risk of nervous system as well as reproductive system problems. Moreover, unplugged or poorly plugged wells may also affect the groundwater. According to the American Geosciences Institute 'old wells may have degraded well casing or cement that can allow oil, gas, or salty water to leak into freshwater aquifers'. In 2011, a Groundwater Protection Council study found that abandoned wells caused 41 incidents of groundwater contamination in Ohio between 1983 and 2007, and 30 in Texas between 1993 and 2008. Environmental pollution affects children and younger people even more heavily than adults. Therefore, it is relevant to mention that not only small towns but also certain schools in Utah are located within one or three miles of abandoned wells.

Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency is working on estimating the number of abandoned gas and oils wells in the United States while also trying to gather as much current and historic data as possible. Emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells are not yet included in the EPA's National Emission Inventory.