FAIRMONT – The state Department of Environmental Protection has $38 million in federal funds to plug certain oil and gas wells and is gathering public input on how to pick the projects.
Thirteen people – some of them well owners – gathered at the Kingmont Community Building Wednesday evening to learn about the program and offer a few ideas and a lot of questions. It was the second of DEP’s three public meetings on the program: The first was last week in Charleston; the third was Thursday in Cairo.
Jason Harmon, deputy chief of DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas, explained what’s going on. Well plugging is expensive and state money hasn’t accomplished a whole lot, he said. Up until 2020, OOG had about $150,000 per year to plug just one well. The Legislature allotted $9 million in 2020, but even that is peanuts compared to the federal funds.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has provided about $54 million so far – with more slated to come – to plug orphaned wells, which are abandoned wells with no known owner or operator.
The current project is called the Methane Emission Reduction Program (MERP). It springs from another source of money: the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The $38 million must be used for what are called marginal conventional wells (MCWs), which are idle or low-producing wells that may pose environmental and safety risks but may still belong to a responsible owner.
The grant requires community input, Harmon said. These meetings are part of the process to gather public input to set criteria and parameters to create a formula to prioritize which wells to plug.
“We, with the help of the public and the community, have to come up with a way that we’re going to spend that money,” he said.
The state has 75,000 unplugged wells, he said; 63,362 are MCWs. “Our universe of eligible wells that can be plugged is almost every well.”
The MERP grant has three “must” requirements, he said. Methane and other greenhouse gas emissions must be considered (given the program’s name), with a higher priority for leaking wells.
Proximity to what the federal Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool considers a disadvantaged community must be considered. Most of West Virginia falls under the definition, he said. And we have 46,000 wells in those areas.
The third, not really relevant for this state, is proximity to tribal lands.
Audience members suggested some other criteria to weigh for consideration: proximity to public buildings such as schools and hospitals, proximity to water sources, owners/operators with with fewer wells who have less access to money for plugging.
The state has 1,348 operators; 1,043 of them have less than 10 wells; 144 11-50; 54 have less than 100; nine operators have 1,348 and collectively operate 28,498 conventional wells.
In terms of production, 25,029 wells produce less than 1,000 cubic feet (1 mcf) per day; another 18,341 produce 1-5 mcf.
Harmon offered some other possible criteria: production rates, small business impacts and wheter a well provides free or low-cost gas to a home.
Audience members agree that home-gas wells, as they termed them, should not be considered for plugging.
OOG worked with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, he said, to create a MERP prioritization tool to develop a ranking score. All the data will be plugged into to to create a prioritized list of wells to work from – from the top down – and put them out for bid.
Accounting for the various expenses, he said, including hiring a program administrator, they hope to plug about 400 wells.
OOG will start collecting nominations sometime during the first quarter of 2025, he said. A Community Benefits Committee of stakeholders – surface owners, mineral owners, GO-WV, environmental and labor groups – to help create a nomination process.
Operators will nominate their own wells for plugging. “Participation in this program is entirely voluntary. We’re not trying to force anybody to plug anything.”
The West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization is represented on the committtee and emailed The Dominion Post some ideas for consideration.
“Our initial thoughts are that for wells that have a responsible operator that is still in business, this money should only be used to plug idle wells, and not marginal wells still producing. Why? Because idle wells are most likely to need plugged soonest, and wells producing some gas or oil should be paying some royalties to some mineral owner.”
Echoing thought of Wednesday’s audience, SORO said, “Preference should be given to wells belonging to the drillers with the least total production since they are least likely to be able to afford to plug wells, followed by the wells of those drillers that have more production, but only if they have already plugged wells on their own.”
Morgantown resident Matt Miller also offered some thoughts in an op-ed submission to The Dominion Post. Among them, he wrote, “This grant money should not be used to plug wells for which there is already a strong private sector incentive to plug. For instance, there is already a well-funded private effort to plug abandoned and marginal conventional wells located in the paths proposed coal mines.
“West Virginia should use this grant money to address MCWs which would not otherwise be properly plugged and abandoned rather than subsidizing the plugging of wells which coal companies are willing to take care of on their own. Coal companies already have a significant financial incentive to voluntarily bear the costs of plugging MCWs located in the paths of coal mines and regularly do undertake such plugging operations.”
