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State Budget Crisis Means Slowdown Plugging Abandoned Oil Wells

Courtesy OCCA

Oklahoma’s budget crisis will affect work to plug abandoned oil wells in the immediate future.

Oklahoma Corporation Commission spokesman Matt Skinner said last year’s revenue failures and this year’s appropriations have taken away about $2 million dollars for that work.

"There will be a continued delay in the plugging of certain classifications of abandoned wells that may otherwise get plugged more quickly," Skinner said. "Those are classifications where they're not a direct threat to health and human safety."

The commission has a list of 300 wells to plug, but wells no one knew existed are found all the time in old boom areas like around Tulsa.

"Particularly in that area, it's very rare for a month to go by without us finding a well that we have no paperwork on and that has thrown its old mud plug and has to be plugged," Skinner said.

The wells on the commission’s list don’t pose an immediate danger. Newly discovered wells that do are usually plugged within 24 hours, which is expensive.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.