Feds give EGLE $5.8M grant to continue work on orphaned wells

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Michigan will get nearly $6 million in federal grants to continue tackling orphaned oil and gas wells across the state.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the grant this week during a discussion in Wayne, near Detroit.

Adam Wygant, the director of the Oil, Gas and Minerals Division at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, says the grant will drastically speed up the state’s timeline.

“It is allowing us to protect groundwater, return sites to full use, put people to work and mitigate methane leaks. This federal funding is allowing us to do decades of work within a span of two to four years,” Wygant said in a statement.

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The $5.87 million grant will come from funding allocated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest piece of legislation that tackles “legacy pollution” in American history. It includes $4.7 billion for orphaned wells.

The grant comes on the heels of the initial investment of $25 million awarded to the state in 2022. According to EGLE, more than 200 wells have been plugged in Michigan since then and more than 7,000 wells have been plugged nationwide thanks to the legislation.

Orphaned wells are oil or gas wells that were either improperly plugged or outright abandoned by their owners. Bill Duley, an EGLE geologist, said it’s important to properly cap the wells to prevent environmental damage.

“When nobody is operating a well, it could develop leaks which could cause air, groundwater or soil contamination,” Duley said in an EGLE video explaining the program. “By properly plugging these wells with cement, the Orphaned Well Team is reducing the risk that contamination could occur.”

EGLE makes major progress on orphan oil wells

The plugging process typically takes anywhere from one week to one month, depending on the detail in the well’s records, how accessible a well is and its condition.

“Once the well is removed and the surface equipment is off site, we can plant grass, crops and trees and we can give that land back to the farmers, families, hunters and anyone else who has access to the property,” Duley said.

All of Michigan’s orphaned wells are in the Lower Peninsula. There are no orphaned wells in the Upper Peninsula because of its unique geology. Most of them are in northern Michigan, with clusters of wells near Gaylord and in Benzie and Manistee counties. There are only a handful of them in West Michigan, including some in Calhoun, Montcalm, Newaygo and Oceana counties.

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