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Corbett Wants to Spend Impact Fees to Plug Abandoned Wells

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett says he wants to use some of the money from a natural gas drilling impact fee to help plug up abandoned wells. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Corbett, who is against taxing gas drillers, but says he would consider an “impact fee,” says some of that money should be spent making the old wells safe.
Pennsylvania has thousands of abandoned wells dating back to oil drilling in the 1860’s. A recently uncovered 1987 report by the Environmental Protection Agency that linked natural gas drilling to a contaminated water well in West Virginia, pointed to nearby abandoned wells as a possible pathway of contamination.

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