Oil wells have been made by big corporations to provide energy or to rake in money. They have certainly enjoyed the profits that they reaped, but many of them have been shut down or altogether abandoned. These areas are just sitting there, doing nothing.
Many have expressed concern because these oil wells emit gases that are extremely harmful to the environment. While there is a growing uproar, no one has done much about it. That is, until this career oil executive decided to take action.
If you took a look at many different areas all across the United States alone, you’ll find that there may be a presence of millions of old oil wells. While these look harmless enough, they actually emit a dangerous gas called methane into the atmosphere. This has the destructive ability to pollute local ecosystems. While not too many people have been made aware of this, this is truly a jarring problem that everyone needs to be made aware of.
Not to fret because one at a time, the wells are being sealed. Credit can be given to a non-profit organization that was created by a career oil executive. He had eventually become concerned by the mess that were left behind by the drilling activities done years before.
“When I saw the condition that was left behind by the industry I was absolutely horrified,” said Curtis Shuck Jr.. He is the founder of the Well Done Foundation and he had recently spoken to BBC about this. He explained further, “I was embarrassed, as being an industry professional, that in any universe we would have that it was okay to walk away from something like that.”
According to the counts made by EPA, there are around 2,150,000 unsecured oil wells. Some of these said wells are lying mere meters away from people’s homes across the U.S. Fact is that they regularly emit methane of more than 7 million tons per year. For those who don’t know, methane is a natural gas that remains in the atmosphere for only a few years. While this may not sound too alarming, this actually carries a noteworthy climate change impact because it causes certain effects on the area’s localized warming.
Well Done is doing its part to cap off these oil wells with thorough methods to make sure that these don’t affect the nearby areas any longer. The company started by relying on donated money at first in order to get some financing on the project. They then work with the local government and the EPA in order for them to assess and develop the appropriate well-capping methods. After which, they outsource to local communities. The beneficiaries of their work are oftentimes those who have lost their oil-industry labor positions when the wells they found had been abandoned.
After all these, they work hard to find the perfect format for a long-term site monitoring project to make sure that the lingering effects on the ecosystem is immediately recognized and addressed properly.
And while this non-profit organization has only been recently established, it has already managed to conduct 14 well-plugging projects in Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The cumulative work made will have the ability to save the country the emissions that tantamount to the annual electricity use of a whopping 99,000 homes.
Well Done also has well-plugging projects already lined up in areas such as West Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and California.
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!
True Activist / Report a typo
