Op-ed: Abandoned Wells Threaten Colorado
This piece originally appeared as an op-ed in the Daily Camera on July 1, 2021.
By Bianca McGrath-Martinez, HECHO Program Manager | 07/01/2021 at 11:32 a.m.
Our communities rely on public lands for clean air and water, and for opportunities to connect with the land. Our identities are intertwined with the health of our public lands, and when properly stewarded, we are the beneficiaries. But a growing crisis of abandoned oil and gas wells on federal public lands threatens our clean air and water.
An abandoned well is one that has stopped producing oil and gas and the original owner is not around anymore (usually because of bankruptcy) to plug it properly and reclaim the surrounding land. This is a serious problem because leaking abandoned wells can cause groundwater pollution, tainting our water supply and releasing toxic chemicals into the air.
The cost of cleanup is steep: upward of $300,000 for modern wells. The oil and gas industry has repeatedly tried to downplay the problem of abandoned wells as primarily a “state and local issue.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. A recent report from the National Wildlife Federation and Public Land Solutions found at least 637 wells on federal public lands in Colorado that are either abandoned or at risk of becoming abandoned, and the actual number is likely far greater as the pandemic has caused a surge of oil company bankruptcies and associated abandoned wells.
Those who made this mess should pay the bill to clean it up — period. But that frequently does not happen because rates for federal oil and gas bonds, which are supposed to act as an insurance policy in the event a company goes bankrupt, have not been updated since the 1950s and ’60s. In fact, in 2019, the Government Accountability Office found that because federal bonding rates are so insufficient, as many as 99% of existing bonds are too low to cover potential cleanup costs. And when these bonds do not cover those cleanup costs, taxpayers must pay the tab. CEOs have had no problem helping themselves to large bonuses before shutting down and abandoning wells; that money should be spent leaving our lands better than they found them.
It is simply unacceptable for our communities to bear the burden when oil and gas companies do not clean up after themselves. Everyone should have to clean up their own mess, and oil and gas executives are no exception. Yet, they continue to take advantage of a broken system that shifts cleanup costs from responsible parties to the public. Proper management and stewardship of our public lands means holding executives accountable while ensuring that orphaned wells get cleaned up now.
Luckily, Colorado’s Sen. Michael Bennet is working to fix this problem at the federal level. He recently introduced legislation to not only increase funding to clean up these wells but also modernize bonding requirements in order to meaningfully reform the leasing system and ensure this crisis does not happen again. States like Colorado are already taking action to tackle this issue on state and private lands, but we need the federal government to commit to fixing the problem on public lands, too.
If we want to leave our public lands in pristine condition for future generations, we cannot let the toxic legacy of abandoned oil wells persist while oil and gas executives continue to leave these wells behind for the rest of us to clean up. The Biden administration has made cleaning up abandoned wells a priority and is considering how best to address this problem as it reviews the federal oil and gas leasing program. Congress should also work to pass reforms like Bennet’s. Addressing the current crisis to protect our land and the air and water that our communities depend on is absolutely critical — but we cannot forget who created the mess in the first place.
Bianca McGrath-Martinez lives in Lafayette and is a program manager for Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting and the Outdoors (HECHO) and a co-program coordinator for Colorado’s Latino Outdoors chapter.