The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources announce more than 100 orphaned well sites in the Monroe and Shreveport areas have been plugged with funding from the Federal Infrastructure Law since work began in January. DNR spokesperson Patrick Courreges said another 30-plus wells should be plugged by the end of the month.
“In two and a half months we’ll probably doing numbers that rival what we’re normally able to get done in a full year with our regular state funding.”
The state Office of Conservation normally plugs 120 to 200 wells a year and there are over four-thousand orphaned well sites in Louisiana.
Last year, Louisiana received a $25 million grant to address orphaned well sites and they have to use the money before the federal fiscal year ends in October. Courreges said they’ve hired more than a dozen crews to plug orphaned wells.
“We’d like to see at least 400 to 500 done, and if we can do more than that, that’d be great. Either way, because the way our state orphaned site restoration work is still going on, so either way you slice it, it is going to be a banner year for getting orphaned wells plugged.”
Contractors will continue to work on plugging well sites primarily in north Louisiana. Courreges said many of the wells have harmful substances deep underground.
“Saltwater, you may have oil, you have methane that has an access pathway from where its at to the surface, to groundwater, to things like that. Even if they’re not actively leaking, they have that potential.”
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