State and US officials tout spending to plug ‘orphan wells’

ATCHAFALAYA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, La. — Stacks of valves, networks of pipes and hulking, two-story-tall tanks litter parts of the swampy landscape of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, rusting relics of sites where oil wells were drilled in the 1970s, an unwanted legacy of the energy industry that has long helped drive the Louisiana economy. Administration officials joined their state counterparts in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge recently to tout the efforts. In the south Louisiana wetlands, where salty water can exacerbate the deterioration, defunct wells threaten the environmental health of an area that is home to an abundance of wildlife: numerous species of migratory fowl; deer, beaver, bears and a variety of other mammals; the once-endangered alligator among many other reptiles. Williams’ agency last year announced it had received more than $13 million of infrastructure bill money to remediate 175 orphaned wells on six national wildlife refuges in Oklahoma and Louisiana.