The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced Monday that New York is deploying state-of-the-art drone technology to help reduce climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from aging and abandoned oil and gas infrastructure. DEC and NYSERDA are using high-tech aerial surveillance equipment to locate and plug abandoned, decades-old oil and gas wells that leak methane into the environment. Ton for ton, methane is many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and is second only to carbon dioxide in its overall contribution to climate change. Representing almost 10 percent of the state’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, methane reduction is a key piece of New York’s nation-leading policies to address the risks from climate change.

DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said, “With our partners at NYSERDA, DEC is deploying cutting-edge drone technology to map and locate orphan oil and gas wells, some of which were abandoned more than a century ago. Plugging these wells is critical to reducing fugitive methane from escaping into the atmosphere and is further proof that New York is undertaking nation-leading actions to reduce greenhouse gases from sources – large and small – across the state.”

To support this effort, NYSERDA will invest up to $400,000 in custom-built drone equipment and instrumentation that will be used by DEC to detect the presence of abandoned oil and gas wells primarily located in Central and Western New York that may emit methane. These regions were drilled for oil and gas starting in the 19th Century before the State’s stringent regulatory programs and often in remote locations. Although there is no definitive estimate of the total number of orphan oil and gas wells in New York State, DEC has located and assessed more than 2,000 of these wells to date by talking to local landowners, conducting research, and on-site ground searches. DEC’s work on orphan wells in New York indicates that thousands of additional abandoned wells may continue to emit methane gas into the atmosphere.

The wells are difficult to spot during land-based field surveys. DEC will target areas to search for orphaned oil and gas wells by using old lease maps, information from local landowners, and other data that suggests where wells might be present. The specialized drones will fly over the landscape with equipment that reveals magnetic signals produced by the wells at specific GPS coordinates. Signal anomalies and other data will be used to create maps that DEC will use to identify locations for on-site visits to verify the presence of orphan wells. Once an abandoned well is identified, DEC will assess its risk to public safety and the environment and take appropriate measures to reduce leaking, fugitive methane emissions as part of the New York Works Well Plugging Initiative. Since 2014, DEC has plugged 340 orphaned oil and gas wells under this initiative.

Plugging abandoned wells is one of numerous steps New York State is taking to reduce methane emissions from landfills, new and existing oil and gas infrastructure, and agriculture, among other sources.

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