Can one person make one decision and eliminate the same amount of pollution spewed by one million cars?
Yes.
Meet Curtis Shuck, an oil executive turned plugger of orphaned gas wells. Shuck encountered his first abandoned oil well in 2019, found it disgusting, and decided to do something about it. Since then, he’s plugged 120 pollution-spewing wells in 15 states and prevented methane, benzene, brine water, hydrogen sulfide, and other toxic chemicals from entering our air and water.
Methane is a powerful heat-trapping gas that contributes to climate change. The amount of methane Shuck and his crew have stopped from entering the atmosphere is equivalent to 5 million metric tons of CO₂.
That’s the same amount as:
The annual emissions of about 1 million cars.
The electricity used by 900,000 homes for a year.
The carbon captured by 6 million acres of U.S. forests in a year.
“Everybody needs to do something to leave things better for the next generation,” Shuck said. “That’s the driver. That’s what gets me up in the morning. Wherever you are on the climate spectrum, it’s really about doing the right thing. Everyone knows what that is. Your gut will tell you what that is.”
Researchers estimate there could be 3.5 million abandoned oil wells in the United States. The average cost to plug a well is $140,000, with some wells costing closer to $500,000. The work involves removing equipment inserted thousands of feet deep, then filling the hole with concrete.
Through it all, the Well Done Foundation ensures cranes, drills, and concrete trucks travel over prairies, forests, and wetlands without leaving lasting damage. When a well is sticking out of the middle of a river, poisoning water and wildlife, permits can still take six months or more to secure.
The work is dirty, dangerous, and full of unexpected obstacles.
To top it off, the price of concrete has doubled since 2019.
And yet, Curtis Shuck can’t get enough of it.
“We’re in the ‘Get Shit Done’ business. We’re not about pointing fingers and flinging poo.”
Who to blame is usually a mystery not worth taking the time to solve. Millions of zombie wells were built in the 1800s before modern recordkeeping and environmental regulations that require bonds and cleanup. Meanwhile, these wells are, as Shuck describes, a “conduit for bad things to rise to the surface,” including trapped gases like methane, a major component of natural gas.
The foundation measures every ounce of methane it caps. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that’s 28 times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide. Atmospheric methane concentrations have doubled in the past two centuries, largely due to human activities like oil drilling. Preventing methane emissions represents a huge opportunity for addressing climate change.
“That’s what we do all day, every day, is measure gas and report what those levels are. It’s about being able to highlight the result of the work. Measuring at the wellhead is critical for accurate data, to help them quantify what the return on investment is for those federal dollars.”
Most recently, the foundation has secured contracts to plug over 100 polluting wells in national wildlife refuges in Oregon, Montana, and Oklahoma. So far, the foundation has plugged 32 wells in the Deep Fork National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. In terms of rare wildlife, the refuge is home to endangered northern long-eared bats, little brown bats, tricolored bats, piping plovers, rufa red knots, American burying beetles, monarch butterflies, and alligator snapping turtles.
Shuck has latched on to plugging wells, come hell or high water, since he saw his first orphaned well in 2019 in northern Montana. The wellhead was missing, and it was leaking methane. Oilfield trash lay all around. As he drove away, he began making plans for his foundation. He filed the paperwork within a few days. The first well was funded by bake sales and car washes. Now, the work is funded by a combination of private donations, carbon credit financing, and federal contracts.
“To me, what’s exciting is that back in 2019, nobody was talking about it, and everybody thought we were crazy. The scope of this is massive, and we’re not really winning in terms of the numbers. The way we rationalize our success is ‘One well at a time.’
“Every well is a victory.”
“We’re in the ‘Get Shit Done’ business. We’re not about pointing fingers and flinging poo.”
— Curtis Shuck, founder, Well Done Foundation
Inside Climate News recently tagged along with the Well Done Foundation for some well-plugging action. Read more about the technical aspects of the work, the safety challenges, and funding mechanisms, including the effects of Trump’s executive orders, in their story, “Plugging away at the millions of derelict oil and gas wells in the US.”
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About Earth Hope
Earth Hope is a solutions-based journalism project that highlights environmental success stories to inspire action. I’m Amanda Royal, a former newspaper reporter and current eco-news junkie. Read more about this project and what inspired it. I aggregate news under my “hopeful headlines,” conduct original reporting and interviews, and share occasional personal narratives. Visit earthhope.substack.com for more stories. To understand why I write about hope, please read “As I went down in the river to pray …”
Great story -- but a simple legislative fix is ultimately necessary. California has over 41,000 abandoned oil and gas wells. Plugging them all would cost $23 billion. We know who's responsible for most of them (Chevron, Aera Energy, and California Resources Corporation alone get you most of the way there.) To use an analogy that their execs can understand, in golf, you repair your divots.
Orphaned wells are a huge problem. Very inspiring to read this story. I am hopeful it inspires governmental action to enforce regulations, holding the responsible parties accountable to do the right (and lawful) thing.