Thursday, July 08, 2010
The well that has created the worst oil spill in U.S. history was soon going to be abandoned by BP when the accident on April 20 unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that the well had been sealed with concrete for “temporary abandonment” prompted the Associated Press to find out the status of similar wells off the gulf coast. What it found was startling.
More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells currently sit at the bottom of the gulf, forming what the AP calls “an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades.” Apparently neither the federal government nor the oil industry is examining the wells to ensure they’re not leaking.
Some wells were abandoned as long ago as the late 1940s. About 3,500 of them are classified as “temporarily abandoned,” which means that they are not covered by the more strict safety standards applied to wells that are “permanently abandoned.”
As early as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that leaks from abandoned wells could cause an “environmental disaster.” Some wells have been covered by temporary abandonment status since the 1950s.
Officials at the the Minerals Management Service (recently rebranded by the Obama administration as the “Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement”) have, as standard procedure, accepted industry reports on well closures without inspecting the work.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Enviro Groups Stunned that Govt Ignoring 27K Wells (by Jeff Donn and Mitch Weiss, Associated Press)
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