There could be thousands of old oil wells across Colorado that are low producing or not producing at all, but haven’t been cleaned up by their operators.
These sites are referred to as “zombie” wells or “orphaned” wells. A “zombie”well is a non-producing or low-producing well that is still under the operator. An “orphaned” well, on the other hand, has been turned over to the state for cleanup.
Denver7’s Angelika Albaladejo visited more than a dozen of these sites to investigate what dangers they posed to their surrounding communities. It was part of a joint investigation with ABC News.
Hear about her work in the field across Colorado in the video player below.
Denver7 investigates, ABC News partnered to examine orphaned oil wells in Colorado. Here’s what we found.
“We had some devices that can actually pick up combustible gasses, for example, like climate-warming methane, that come off of these wells,” Albaladejo said. “What we found was the orphaned wells that are already under state care didn’t seem to have any issues, but when we went to some of these lower producing wells, that’s where we found some problems.”