News Release

Orphaned Gas Well to be Plugged at Gauley River NRA with funding from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda

Orphaned gas well within the Gauley River National Recreation Area to be plugged

NPS

News Release Date: September 6, 2023

Contact: Eve West, 304-719-6364

Glen Jean, W.Va. — Beginning the week of September 18, the National Park Service will begin work plugging an orphaned gas well within the Gauley River National Recreation Area with funding from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. This work will continue for up to three weeks. 

During this time, heavy equipment will be entering and exiting the worksite on Lucas Road near the area of Koontz Bend. Park visitors and residents should be aware of extra traffic when travelling in this area. 

The well will be plugged with cement and the associated equipment taken away. Three feet of protruding pipe will be left standing at the site. The access road and well pad will be reseeded with native grasses following completion of work. This well, one of about 20 in the park, dates from the 1950’s and has been inactive for around 20 years. Some wells in the park remain active with mineral rights in private ownership while surface land is under federal ownership. 

Millions of Americans across the country live within just one mile from an orphaned oil and gas well. These legacy pollution sites are environmental hazards and jeopardize public health and safety by contaminating groundwater, emitting noxious gases like methane, littering the landscape with rusted and dangerous equipment, creating flooding and sinkhole risks, and harming wildlife. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law delivers the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history, with $4.7 billion to clean up orphaned wells and well sites on federal public lands -- including national parks, national wildlife refuges and national forests – and on state, private and Tribal lands.  

Plugging orphaned wells advances the goals of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Methane Action Plan, as well as the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, which focuses on spurring economic revitalization in hard-hit energy communities. The program is also part of the Justice40 Initiative, which is advancing environmental justice by ensuring that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments reach disadvantaged communities that are marginalized and overburdened by pollution and underinvestment.