On the edge of West Virginia’s Kanawha State Forest near Charleston, gunshots cut through the cool morning air as shooters practiced their weapons on the range.
Ted Boettner, a senior scientist at the Ohio River Valley Institute, and Dave McMahon, co-founder of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Group, were scheduled to investigate an abandoned natural gas well.
After about 10 minutes of hiking, they discovered a rusted brine tank used to store salt water gushing from a well. After a few more minutes, McMahon was standing by an abandoned well. The smell of rotten eggs from hydrogen sulfide leaking from the well casing was strong.
Eric Douglas
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west virginia public broadcasting
Within just a few meters, visitors can smell hydrogen sulfide leaking from an abandoned natural gas well.
Mr. McMahon read the statistics from well production records.
“It was originally drilled in 1943 by United Fuel Gas, the predecessor to Columbia,” he says. “They drilled it to 4,500 feet, and it produced gas for a while. Then they came back in 1965 and drilled even deeper.”
Although this well is abandoned, it is not isolated. There is a difference.
“By law, a well that has not produced (gas) for 12 months is called an abandoned well,” he said. “But in some cases, they haven’t actually been abandoned. They still have a responsible manager. Once you don’t have a responsible manager, the well becomes orphaned.”
The Kanawha State Forest oil well is owned by Pillar Energy LLC. A company representative confirmed in an email that the company has applied for a permit from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to plug the well.
abandoned well
Mr. Bottner recently authored a report on orphan and abandoned wells in the state called “West Virginia’s Abandoned Well Problem” for the Ohio River Valley Institute.
“It was very interesting to learn that we have been asking businesses to plug their wells since 1891 or 1892,” he said. “But the requirement was ‘well-seasoned wood plugs,’ and there was no state authority to actually enforce that.”
Bottner said gas well permitting began in 1929, but the first gas well was drilled in 1860 in what was then Virginia. The West Virginia DEP declined to make anyone available for interviews for this article, but said in an emailed statement that there are approximately 6,300 documented abandoned and orphaned wells across the state.
“We know from previous DEP studies conducted in the 1990s that the estimated number of abandoned wells are mostly wells drilled before 1929,” Bottner said.
Gas wells are located throughout the state, concentrated in areas such as the Northern Panhandle and along the Ohio River Valley due to historic oil and gas development.
Natural gas well blockage
The average cost to plug an orphaned well in West Virginia is about $65,000, according to the DEP. Actual costs may vary significantly depending on site-specific factors such as well condition, topography, accessibility, and proximity to structures.
Using DEP numbers, it would cost more than $400 million to plug the state’s documented orphan wells.
In 2020, the West Virginia Legislature established the Oil and Gas Abandoned Well Opening Fund, which now dedicates millions of dollars each year from severance taxes to uncorking operations. As a result, the number of wells plugged with state funds increased from one well in 2021 to 94 wells in 2025. DEP estimates that 150 wells will be plugged with state and federal funding in 2026.
There is an isolated well in the town of Dunbar, about 20 minutes away. The leak occurs even though it is within a few yards of a road that runs parallel to the interstate.
As soon as McMahon poured water into the wellhead, methane and hydrogen sulfide leaked out and bubbles began to form.
There are no protective walls around it. If a vehicle fails to turn into the road in front of it, the consequences can be dire. It stands next to the town’s fenced-in water pumping station.
Although this well was drilled in 1929, there is no significant company that controls it. It’s up to the state or federal government to resolve this.
air quality and pollution
Kevin Stewart, director of environmental health for the American Lung Association, recently discussed the 27th annual State of the Air report with West Virginia Public Broadcasting. He was asked about hydrogen sulfide and methane in the atmosphere.
“This is a toxic substance in the air. You don’t want to breathe in hydrogen sulfide, and certainly the Lung Association recognizes that methane is a very powerful substance that exacerbates climate change,” Stewart said. “It’s more powerful than carbon dioxide and is definitely emitted by natural gas operations, including the abandoned well sector.”
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, methane is 34 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over 100 years and 86 times more effective at trapping heat over 20 years.
Stewart said he was concerned about these emissions because the changing climate is accumulating more pollutants and lung irritants.
“We’re already seeing some of that in some of the data,” Stewart said. “Ozone levels are much higher than we would expect from the same amount of emissions we are producing. That’s because more stagnant air makes it easier for pollutants to accumulate due to warmer temperatures, brighter sunlight, and slower air movement. These are the results of a changing climate.”
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2021, methane emissions from natural gas and oil systems and abandoned oil and natural gas wells were the source of approximately 33% of total methane emissions and approximately 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
“I think it’s important to recognize that oil and gas are the foundation of modern national life,” Bottner said. “They’re in plastics and fertilizers, and they generate 40% of the country’s electricity generation. This is clearly something we need as a society. But at the same time, it’s really important that the companies that agree to plug their wells do it.”
This story was produced by the Appalachian + Mid-South Newsroom, a joint production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Tennessee’s WPLN and WUOT, Kentucky’s LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio, and NPR. Stay up to date with local news by signing up here for the weekly Porch Light newsletter.
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