All eyes are on Houston right now. Because a gas pipeline explosion caused a massive fire. Tonight experts say a different kind of hidden thread is running through Texas and at least twenty-five other states. One that’s not being adequately monitored. We’re talking about millions of abandoned oil and gas wells, they can contaminate groundwater. Can spew carcinogenic chemicals and harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we’ll learn what the potential dangers are to the wells, the threat to millions of Americans, and is enough being done to fix this problem. Tonight Arcane A. Whitworth brings us Zombie. The danger down the well The shallow waters of Trinity Bay just outside Houston appear almost crystal clear when seen from a distance but hidden in plain sight lines. A danger scene or even we’re headed to Trinity Bay. That’s where they believe the largest concentration of these abandoned offshore wells is.
The concern is that but they’re leaking. There are over a hundred abandoned oil and gas wells in this pasture that have been left to rot for decades, they are considered abandoned. Because they haven’t been produced in years. We are surrounded by oil and gas wells in every direction, like most abandoned wells, these rotting rigs rarely check for leaks. That’s why we’ve come to see if we can find any leaks ourselves. As we approach one of the wells, we hear an ominous sound. There’s one we can listen to. We’ve used a handheld gas detector, which experts have told us can detect if a well is leaking combustible gas, detect if it’s gone, it’s gone, the second one I put here.
Usually, these are old wells when they have gas coming out. It’s nothing, so it’s a dangerous greenhouse gas. Nearby we found another abandoned well where there’s bubbling just below the surface. You can see this thing is just bubbling. Everywhere oh it’s hi hi, this is the dark side of the fossil fuel industry a hidden, mostly invisible threat operating below the surface of more than twenty-five states there are more than three point five million abandoned oil and gas wells across the US we know about we’ve found that about fourteen million Americans live within a mile of an abandoned well. Those are known in the league or Texas and zombie wells are a zombie and something like that. Those that get killed or father and resurrect, what I call zombie wells are resurrecting. Abandoned wells that leak can contaminate groundwater.
can spew carcinogenic chemicals and harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These wells pose a threat to people and livelihoods especially children older people and people with health problems, yet despite the risks experts said there isn’t adequate inspection for leaks. That’s why our news, along with six of its affiliate stations, has launched the largest journalistic investigation of its kind, scouring the country with gas detectors to locate and test abandoned wells for dangerous leaks. Two teams tested seventy-six wells in five states and found that more than forty-half of the wells were leaking oil or combustible gas at the time. Almost immediately and straight on top of it it occurred to ten thousand one hundred that the leak could just go on for years and years.
We searched for leaky wells along rivers in New York. To a lesser extent on top of hills and in California it’s full of oil. Like nowhere else are there more abandoned wells than Texas, more than six hundred thousand of them for the state, especially common in the Permian Basin? The rig built his family’s dream home. Are you hungry, he’s a lifestyle choice to raise his children, a rule and Hunt said they appreciate nature. Where their food comes from. Hard work and the other side of life that isn’t so easy. Laura knew when she bought the land that there were more than thirty abandoned wells on it, but the mother of four didn’t expect that some of them had started leaking.
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