BLM allows old unplugged wells to fester in Utah, former employee’s report says

The Seep Ridge No. 3 well never produced much oil and gas. And it has been dormant since 2000 — five years after the well was acquired by a one-man Vernal energy company called Hot Rod Oil. But in defiance of Bureau of Land Management policy, several Hot Rod wells remain unplugged and unreclaimed along with hundreds of other nonproducing wells on federal lands in Utah, according to a new analysis by a retired BLM official who conducted well inspections for the agency's Vernal field office. Such "orphaned" wells unnecessarily enlarge the oil and gas industry's footprint on Utah's landscape, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which released the analysis Monday. Uncapped wells allow disturbed land at well sites to go unreclaimed and could potentially pollute the environment, the group argues. Stan Olmstead, a 20-year veteran of the BLM's Vernal field office who now lives in Tennessee, has compiled years of well status data related to four BLM field offices. His analysis identified 557 unplugged wells that haven't produced for the past 10 years. Most of the wells are in the Uinta Basin, administered by the Vernal office — the nation's busiest for energy development. Olmstead's report dovetails with an Associated Press analysis released last year that found a large number of Vernal's "high-priority" wells are going too long without inspections...more