http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/06/uninspected-oil-gas-wells-map
[images and links in on-line article]
There Are 1,401 Uninspected High-Risk Oil and Gas Wells. Here's Where
They Are.
The government is failing to conduct key safety inspections on new oil
and gas wells on federal and Native American land.
—By Tim McDonnell and AJ Vicens
| Mon Jun. 23, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
Johnson County, Wyoming, is the kind of remote, quiet Western community
where life revolves around cattle—it was the site of an infamous
19th-century armed battle between cowboys and suspected cattle rustlers.
The county ranks only 11th statewide for oil production, but it holds
the No. 1 ranking nationwide for a more ignominious distinction: It has
249 new, high-risk oil and gas wells that the federal government has
failed to inspect for compliance with safety and environmental standards.
Johnson County may have the most uninspected wells, but it's far from
the only place where the problem exists. In fact, of all 3,486 oil and
gas wells drilled on federal and Native American land from 2009 to 2012
that were identified by the Bureau of Land Management as high risk for
pollution, 40 percent were not inspected at the most important stage of
their development, according to records the BLM provided to Climate Desk.
"In a perfect world, we'd love to get to all those wells," said Steven
Wells, chief of the BLM's Fluid Minerals Division. "Unfortunately we've
been fighting an uphill battle. We hope that at some point we'll be able
to catch up."
The map and chart below identify where these wells are located, by
county: (http://www.motherjones.com/files/blm_map_by_hand_5.jpg)
In May, the Government Accountability Office estimated that an even
larger share of new wells on federal land—57 percent—were not inspected.
While the revised 40 percent figure, which was first reported by the
Associated Press, is lower, it's "still not a very good number,"
acknowledged BLM spokesperson Bev Winston.
Between 2009 and 2012, the BLM tagged 3,486 new oil and gas wells as
"high-priority," meaning they are deserving of special scrutiny because
of their proximity to ecologically sensitive areas like watersheds and
forests, or because they tap into geologically volatile formations that
increase the likelihood of an explosion or toxic gas leak. The data
includes both conventional and unconventional wells and does not
indicate how many of the wells were hydraulically fractured, or fracked.
According to the GAO report, the agency's own rules call for all
high-priority wells on federal and Native American land to be inspected
during the drilling stage. That's the only time when key facets of a
well's construction—whether the well casing is properly sealed, or
whether a blowout preventer is correctly installed, for example—can be
adequately inspected. Once the well is drilled, retroactive inspection
becomes difficult or impossible, according to a BLM engineer.
Because the window for drilling inspections at any given well opens and
closes so quickly, the BLM is often spread too thin to get to all of
them, the engineer said. Some wells receive inspections later on to
check the functioning of their machinery, but the drilling stage is the
only opportunity to scrutinize a well's construction.
Wells agreed that BLM field offices are forced to triage their
inspection efforts due to a shortage of boots on the ground. The
staffing problem has only gotten worse in recent years, he said, as
federal budget cuts have coincided with aggressive efforts by the
booming energy industry to hire the best engineers away from government
jobs.
"We're scattered, and you can't be everywhere at once," Wells said.
Wyoming led the nation with the highest proportion of uninspected wells.
Although the state was one of the nation's top oil producers from 2009
to 2012, 45 percent of its new, high-priority wells drilled during that
window were not inspected. Wyoming is the state with the most
BLM-managed wells, Wells said, so "just by sheer numbers, they have the
most number of wells to miss."
Number of uninspected wells per county. (graphic in on-line article)
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