{"id":19595,"date":"2012-10-12T12:22:25","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T17:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=19595"},"modified":"2012-10-12T12:28:42","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T17:28:42","slug":"how-abandoned-wells-can-cause-explosions-and-contamination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/10\/12\/how-abandoned-wells-can-cause-explosions-and-contamination\/","title":{"rendered":"How Abandoned Wells Can Cause Explosions and Contamination"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_19613\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 225px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/10\/12\/how-abandoned-wells-can-cause-explosions-and-contamination\/abandoned-well4-1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19613\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19613\" title=\"Abandoned-Well4.1\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/10\/Abandoned-Well4.1-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/10\/Abandoned-Well4.1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/10\/Abandoned-Well4.1.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Infographic by StateImpact<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">This infographic shows how new wells can cause water contamination when they&#39;re drilled in the same formation as old abandoned wells.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Abandoned wells in Pennsylvania are putting landowners at risk for drilling-induced explosions and water contamination, according to a new investigative series by our fellow StateImpact reporters in Pennsylvania. After a methane geyser erupted in the Pennsylvania countryside last year, StateImpact Pennsylvania is now looking into the dangers of abandoned, aka \u201corphaned,\u201d wells in their <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/tag\/perilous-pathways\/\"><em>Perilous Pathways<\/em><\/a> series.<\/p>\n<p>Laurie Barr lives in Pennsylvania and remembers reading those reports about the geyser earlier this year. \u201cI thought, whoa, what the f\u2014?\u201d Barr recalls. \u201cCan you imag\u00adine step\u00adping out to shovel snow, and your whole house goes poof?\u201d Now she&#8217;s made it her mission to <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/2012\/10\/11\/perilous-pathways-hunting-for-hidden-wells\/\">find where the orphaned wells are<\/a>\u00a0and what danger they pose.<\/p>\n<p>Texas also is home to abandoned wells, as we<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/25\/orphans-of-the-oil-fields-the-cost-of-abandoned-wells\/\">\u00a0reported earlier this year<\/a>. Over 7,869 orphan wells scatter across the oil and gas fields of Texas, which\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rrc.state.tx.us\/environmental\/ofcfund\/expenditures\/OFCU2011.pdf\">cost<\/a>\u00a0millions of dollars to plug.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\">StateImpact Pennsylvania<\/a> reports that there are prob\u00ada\u00adbly around 200,000 aban\u00addoned oil and gas wells in the state. &#8220;We know where just a slim frac\u00adtion \u2013 prob\u00ada\u00adbly four per\u00adcent \u2013 of these wells\u00a0are,&#8221; they write. &#8220;The information gap is a prob\u00adlem, because aban\u00addoned wells are dangerous.&#8221; Some of them can lead to methane migration when new wells are drilled for <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/tag\/fracking\/\">hydraulic fracturing<\/a>, aka &#8220;fracking,&#8221; causing water contamination.<\/p>\n<p>You can read more about orphan wells and what is being done to identify and reduce their threat at <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/tag\/perilous-pathways\/\">StateImpact Pennsylvania<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h5><em>Elizabeth Trovall is an intern with StateImpact Texas.\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abandoned wells in Pennsylvania are putting landowners at risk for drilling-induced explosions and water contamination, according to a new investigative series by our fellow StateImpact reporters in Pennsylvania. After a methane geyser erupted in the Pennsylvania countryside last year, StateImpact Pennsylvania is now looking into the dangers of abandoned, aka \u201corphaned,\u201d wells in their Perilous [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":19613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}