California Lets Companies Keep ‘Dangerous’ Oil Wells Unplugged Forever

Local and national news, NPR, things to do, food recommendations and guides to Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland EmpireLAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. For the latest national news from NPR and our live radio broadcast, visitA leaking wellhead in the Midway-Sunset oil field in Kern County, California. Midway-Sunset is home to dozens of orphaned oil wells.

That was the case for wells that leaked in the southern San Joaquin Valley earlier this year. During an inspection in May, air quality inspectors from CalGEM, the California Air Resources Board and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control Districta combustible volume of methane, though agencies said the chance of an explosion was minimal. One was a few hundred feet from a high school’s outdoor field.

Carbon Tracker put the total well and associated infrastructure cleanup cost at $21.5 billion, a figure that will likely increase over the next two years as production revenue from oil fields declines. Companies have only put $106 million on the books, both through the idle well fee program and other bonding. Public funds to plug orphan wells currently stand at about $730 million.

California’s lax approach to idle wells contrasts with that of other states, which impose firmer bonding rules on companies and guidelines on how long they can claim an idle well might produce oil again. CalGEM said it has a rule in place permitting it to pursue the assets of operators who owned wells after 1996 — the most prominent example being a $35 millionfrom Exxon to abandon an offshore platform. But in “many instances,” past operators don’t have enough money to collect for cleanups, the agency said.The aging wells crisis will become more acute. California’s long term decline in oil production started in 1985 and accelerated in the 2010s.

“Lawmakers should build on this momentum and pass a bill that attacks the root of the problem by forcing the oil industry to clean up all its wells instead of pushing that burden onto California taxpayers or allowing wells to leak dangerous air pollution for decades,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

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