Message From the Editor

Last November, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which set aside $4.7 billion to clean up so-called orphan wells — oil and gas wells that have no identifiable and solvent owner and can leak vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Plugging orphan wells is vital to protecting the environment, and federal regulators reported a deluge of interest in this funding from states, which ultimately decide which wells to plug. That decision process, however, can be murky.
This week, we're proud to publish a powerful investigation from Julie Dermansky and Sharon Kelly that follows the tangle of fights between Louisiana officials over one orphan well — Freshwater City SWD 01 in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana — and raises questions about whether oil-friendly states will put industry interests ahead of the environment.
The state plugged Freshwater City earlier this yer, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $700,000, nearly ten times the average. One member of the commission that oversees the program has expressed concern that this well, which hasn’t been used since 2009 and is on land owned by ExxonMobil, was plugged before others that pose greater dangers. He’s still searching for answers as to why, but feels that “it’s a complete fraud on the Louisiana citizens that expect this operation to protect them.”
Freshwater City’s story — with fears of contaminated drinking water, allegations of corruption, and a scramble for government money — offers a preview of battles that could be on the way across the United States, potentially affecting the ultimate fate of millions of abandoned oil industry wells.
We hope you'll read and share it widely.
Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmog.com. Curious to know what our UK team is up to? Sign up for our UK newsletter!
Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
P.S. Want more powerful public interest journalism like this? Our work is funded by generous donors. If you’d like to help, can you chip in $10 or $20 right now?

Image credit: Julie Dermansky

Industry Insiders Question Louisiana Regulators Over Cleanup on ExxonMobil Land, Amid Corruption Claims and Pollution Fears​​​​​​​

— By Julie Dermansky and Sharon Kelly (17 min. read) —

If you had ventured down a dirt road running through remote marshland along the Gulf Coast in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, at just the right time back in late February, you might have come across a pit of gray muck. Down in that pit, you’d find a contractor welding a steel cap about the size of a dinner plate onto a stub of pipe jutting up from the mud below.

That pipe was the last visible sign of an old oil and gas wastewater well that once dropped over a half-mile deep into the earth, now plugged up and sealed by contractors hired by the state.

Will Reforms to Carbon Markets Better Protect the Climate?

— By Ashley Lampard (8 min. read)—

To advocates, scaling up the markets where companies go to offset their greenhouse gas emissions will unlock billions of dollars to plant forests, restore ecosystems, and spur a global roll-out of machines to scrub carbon dioxide (CO2) from the sky.

To critics, a long history of failed projects suggests that the chief beneficiary may not be the climate — but the bankers and brokers betting that carbon trading is on the cusp of exponential growth.

Drax Eyeing California as Site of New Biomass Carbon Capture Plant​​​​​​​

— By Phoebe Cooke (4 min. read)—

British biomass giant Drax is lobbying the Californian government to play host to its first ever “carbon negative” power plant outside of the UK, despite concerns about the sustainability of the energy source.

Drax has long-standing plans to launch the world’s largest bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plant in North Yorkshire, but the former coal-fired power generator now appears to have California in its sights.

California Assemblyman Kills Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill​​​​​​​

— By Nick Cunningham (5 min. read)—

The California legislature was close to passing a bill that would require the state’s two massive pension funds to divest from fossil fuels, but on June 21 the legislation was killed by one Democratic assemblyman who has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the energy industry.

Senate Bill 1173 would have required the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the two largest public pension funds in the country, to divest from fossil fuels. CalPERS and CalSTRS, which manage pensions for state employees and teachers, together hold more than $9 billion in fossil fuel investments.

Climate Denial Funder Set to Become Tory Peer

— By Adam Barnett and Rachel Sherrington (3 min. read) —

A Tory donor who has helped fund the UK’s leading climate science denial group is to be made a member of the House of Lords, prompting Green MP Caroline Lucas to call for an “urgent” investigation.

Billionaire Australian hedge fund manager Michael Hintze, one of the few known funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), is set to receive a peerage, according to a Sunday Times report over the weekend.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: DonorsTrust

DonorsTrust is a not-for-profit company that distributes millions of dollars in grants each year to groups, organizations and projects that are “dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.” DonorsTrust (DT) regularly distributes to conservative causes, many of which deny the science and impacts of human-caused climate change or the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Read its full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.