Last summer, a utility worker stumbled across a well — one of thousands of abandoned, unplugged oil and gas wells scattered across Kansas — just 15 feet from a stream in La Cygne, an hour south of Kansas City.
Such sites bear witness to the state’s history of fossil fuel production — and they can leak pollutants into the air and water generations after they’ve been forgotten.
Tens of millions of federal tax dollars will help the state seal thousands of openings over the next several years, though many will remain unaddressed.
Old wells in Kansas can date back to the start of oil and gas drilling in the region in the mid-1800s.
Operators behind unprofitable sites often walked away without plugging the holes properly — if at all.
Unplugged wells can leak methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Their pipes can break, letting in groundwater that disappears down the holes forever.
Other times, changes in pressure can push contaminated fluids from the bottom of the wellbore toward the surface, where it seeps into the surrounding earth and water.
So closing the holes involves more than sealing the top. Workers have to fill much or all of the underground pipes. It took 120 sacks of cement to plug the La Cygne well. Abandoned oil & gas wells in Allen County (Categories ranked in order of most to least serious by the Kansas Corporation Commission.) Priority 1A: 1 Priority 1B: 251 Priority 1C: 285 Priority 2: 56Kansas Corporation Commission
Landowners continue to discover long-forgotten wells.
