Feds step in to plug deep, dry oil well in Midway-Sunset
A deep, disappointment of an oil well that has sat idle for eight years near the Kern County border is finally getting some attention following its owner’s bankruptcy in 2017. The federal government is preparing to monitor and then plug the 12,000-foot Sevier Well, located a half-mile from the Carrizo Plain National Monument in the prolific Midway-Sunset Oil Field. …Protecting local groundwater is one goal, he said: The well passes through several water tables, most of them over-salty, others serviceable. … BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning told The Californian Thursday … there are 2.1 orphan petroleum wells across the country that risk polluting potential drinking water and sometimes leak the potent greenhouse gas methane.