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Ronald E. Bishop, Ph.D., C.H.O.
Chemistry & Biochemistry Department
SUNY College at Oneonta
Sustainable Otsego, January 8, 2012
Summary:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the success of New York State’s regulatory program for the oil and gas industry with respect to post-production plugging and reclamation. Annual reports from the Division of Mineral Resources, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation over the last twenty-five years portray an oil and gas industry which has consistently neglected to plug most (89%) of its depleted wells. In this regard, the most recent record has been the worst: Plugging percentage rates ranged from 3.5 to 7.1% throughout the 2000’s. Further, there is no program, existing or proposed, to periodically monitor and repair plugged and abandoned wells which have begun to leak. Therefore, new plugging and reclamation guidelines presented in the revised draft Supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program (rdSGEIS Section 5.17) , and proposed new regulations for plugging and abandoning depleted oil and gas wells (6 NYCRR Section 555.5) are inadequate. Moreover, they are mere academic exercises: Unless the State of New York State does something to dramatically alter the long-standing culture of neglect, we can reasonably expect oil and gas industry operators to ignore any new standards just as they systematically ignore existing standards today.
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