By Michaela Haas for Reasons to be Cheerful.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Big Sky Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Curtis Shuck was inspecting wheat crops with farmers in rural Northern Montana in 2019 when he followed a rotten-egg stench and spotted corroded metal surrounding a borehole. The discovery he stumbled upon would change his life, and eventually the trajectory of carbon emissions in the US: He came across an abandoned oil well that spewed pollution, including methane, into the air and surrounding fields. Once he realized what he was looking at, he identified other wells across the surrounding landscape, left behind in the 1990s after the Gulf War tanked crude prices.

"I couldn't believe what I saw," Shuck says with his heavy Texan drawl. "I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or I was at the right place, depending on how you want to look at it."

The pollution left such a deep impression on the former oil and gas executive that he immediately wanted to take action. His plan: to plug as many oil wells as possible. Before the day was over, he had come up with a name for a nonprofit, Well Done, and registered the domain name TheWellDoneFoundation.org from his truck.

What started out as the epiphany of one hard-charging man has since led to the capping of 45 wells in 14 states. "We just capped our 45th well in Akron, Ohio," Shuck says by phone from the departures hall at the airport in Portland, Oregon, on his mission of crisscrossing the country to find the most urgent wells. "Through that, we have saved over one million tons of CO2e. That's what's so exciting about our work. It's literally gas on, gas off. The benefit is immediate."

This is the story of one man making a sizable difference, but also of the toxic legacy the oil and gas boom has left all over the US. Curtis Shuck is mitigating global warming one well at a time.

An unbelievable 3.7 million abandoned oil and gas wells litter the country and belch more than 300 kilotons of methane or 8.2 million metric tons of CO2e every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. More than half of these wells (58 percent) are unplugged and at least 126,000 wells are "orphaned," meaning regulators can no longer find a company or owner to hold accountable. Maybe the oil company went out of business or bankrupt - and landowners and communities are frequently left with the destruction after oil producers have moved on. Often records have gone missing, and nobody even knows where all the old wells are located. "That number just keeps increasing exponentially as oil companies go out of business," Shuck adds.

About 10 percent of the abandoned wells emit large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term, because of its heat-trapping potential. Studies have found that swift actions to cut methane emissions could slow Earth's warming by 30 percent. The worst well Shuck plugged was emitting more than 10,000 grams of methane per hour. Some also leak other pollutants and brine into surrounding fields or waterways. "It is actually quite difficult to assess how much emission is really occurring," says Adam Peltz, a senior lawyer at the Environmental Defense Fund. "You could go measure on a Tuesday afternoon and again on Thursday morning and get two completely different results."

The oil graveyards have only recently begun to draw attention as major contributors to climate change that demand urgent action. Though Shuck had been working in the oil industry for decades, first as the president of Red River Oil Services in North Dakota, supplying drilling rigs, and then as a transportation and logistics expert for the Port of Vancouver, "I never knew that many wells were simply abandoned," Shuck says. "That was the industry's dirty little secret, and nobody wanted anything to do with it."

He plugged the first well in 2020 "out of our piggy bank, with my and my wife's savings." To this day, he does not draw a salary from Well Done. While still working as a consultant for transportation logistics, he says, "plugging oil wells is my side hustle that takes 90 percent of my time."

Among the dozens of requests he receives every month from landowners, regulatory agencies and communities, he prioritizes the "most urgent wells." Factors include not only the amount of methane and other carcinogens an orphaned well emits, but also how close the well is to a community and how severe the impacts of its pollution. "I've worked on abandoned wells that leak oil into the waterways," he gives as an urgent example. "That's so alarming you want to get to work right away."

Once Well Done "adopts" a well, the organization accepts full financial responsibility. "We have to be careful on the front end because these wells are so expensive. We don't want to load ourselves up too much with liabilities," he cautions. "We have more wells than cents."

Well Done's 10 employees, including Shuck's wife Stacey, work with landowners, local residents, stakeholders and regulatory agencies to raise the necessary funds, secure permits and hire a team on the ground. "Sometimes we get permits really quickly, sometimes it takes longer, but generally, we give ourselves a year to cap a well," Shuck says. He emphasizes that he works with local service companies and workers whenever possible, to build relationships with the community, but he also organizes "field camps," where even people with no prior experience in the industry can learn to measure methane output and help the nonprofit.

Each well is different, but capping most abandoned wells requires pouring thousands of pounds of cement down the hole to keep the gas down. While the average cost is around $75,000, the worst well, a "super-emitter," as Shuck put it, cost him more than $375,000 because he first had to clean out the failing old infrastructure before he could start capping.

But why is a nonprofit taking care of cleanups that should be the responsibility of the oil producers or the state?

Each state has different laws, but until recently, most state laws were rather lenient in allowing producers to let their oil wells sit idle, and oil producers were rarely held accountable for the destruction they left behind. Recognizing the urgency of the issue, the Biden administration restored Obama-era emission standards for the oil industry, and in 2021, it allocated $1.36 billion to measure and reduce methane emissions plus nearly $5 billion to plug orphaned wells, aiming for an 80 percent reduction in methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

This sounds like a lot of money, but it is far from enough: In California alone, more than 41,000 wells sit idle, and the Sierra Club estimates that cleaning and plugging all wells in California will cost $23 billion.

"Well, you could wait around for federal money if you want to wait a long time," says Shuck, who has received no federal money for capping wells but has applied for some state grants. Well Done gets funding from private donors and some companies, including oil and gas companies. Sometimes locals and climate activists band together to fundraise for a problem well in their neighborhood. "The problem is so large and so urgent in terms of need, we're just in the getting-shit-done business," Shuck says. "We celebrate every well we finish. The problem is not going away anytime soon, and if you like immediate results, you just do the work."

As of April 2024, the Bureau of Land Management now requires oil and gas companies to set aside more funds for well-plugging before they receive a drilling permit, but even by the Bureau's own calculations, this recent initiative won't suffice and in any case, it doesn't cover the toxic wells from the past.

"There's been a tremendous amount of industry pushback against these reforms because their business model for decades has been to avoid plugging these wells, and the huge cost is currently being externalized to the public," says Adam Peltz, who helped draft the federal orphan well closure funding legislation. Nevertheless, he is convinced the problem can be solved, both by stringent policies and by putting pressure on the culprits. "There is no excuse to orphan a well. Exxon makes $40 billion a year in profit," Peltz points out. "Exxon alone could plug half the wells in the United States with its profits if it wanted. People often talk about small mom-and-pop-operators whose livelihood depends on their business, and I believe this is a problem that should be socialized among the industry and not socialized to the public."

He also sees the economic upside: plugging the most urgent wells, he notes, "creates thousands of well-paying blue-collar jobs. If we get this right, in addition to taking care of groundwater contamination, methane emissions and explosive risks, this is a huge economic opportunity." He mentions the Louisiana Chamber of Commerce Foundation that is connecting small businesses in the oil patch with federally funded orphan well closure opportunities.

Most states and some cities are now trying to negotiate with oil producers to get them to take responsibility for properly cleaning up abandoned wells. For instance, Culver City was the first city in California to pass an ordinance to close all oil wells by the end of this decade. Assistant City Manager Jesse Mays stresses that Culver City sought dialogue with the oil producers early on to make sure the companies would cap the wells rather than leaving the costs to taxpayers. "We decided that it would be better and more productive for us to come to an agreement with both of our best interests in mind," he says. "As opposed to just passing our ordinance, writing them a letter demanding they comply and leaving it at that." However, Mays was unable to provide crucial details about the extent of the capping, and admitted the city extended permits in exchange for the assurance of well capping. Versions of these negotiations currently play out all over the US.

Curtis Shuck stays clear of pointing blame: "Whether you are a climate crusader or a climate denier, a Republican or Democrat, capping these wells is simply the right thing to do, and I try to find common ground as the basis for our projects."

Shuck's flight is being called. He's off to Montana, to start working on capping his 46th well.


Michaela Haas wrote this article for Reasons to be Cheerful.


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Across Pennsylvania and other northern U.S. states, climate change -- from burning oil, coal and methane gas -- is increasing the number of winter days with minimum temperatures above freezing.

The phenomenon is known as "lost winter" and a Climate Shift Index analysis of temperatures showed more than 60% of 28 snow belt states are having at least one additional week of days above freezing.

Shel Winkely, a meteorologist and weather and climate engagement specialist for Climate Central, said winter weather will not be as cold for as long as it used to be.

"Temperatures that are below freezing -- so, 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or zero degrees Celsius -- those are important days," Winkely explained. "We found out how many days climate change has taken away overnight lows that are at or below the freezing temperature."

Winkley pointed out when you look at the 30-year average of snowfall for Pennsylvania, cities like Philadelphia now have only a 9% chance of seeing a white Christmas, with Pittsburgh faring a bit better at about 31%.

Winkley emphasized the loss of cold winter days can negatively affect some regions that depend economically on winter sports for recreation and tourism income. He added lost winter days can also contribute to a smaller snowpack, meaning less spring-melt water is available for municipal systems or agricultural operations.

"On the whole, the state, when you take the average over this decade -- again, 2014 to 2023 -- climate change added about 10 days per year above 32 degrees or so above freezing," Winkley reported.

Winkley noted the report does not mean winters are going away but the warming climate is making winters shorter and less intense.

"This doesn't mean that there's not cold, or that we're losing all of the cold," Winkley stressed. "We still have cold that is to be found. It just means that we're losing those classic winters. This isn't the winters that our parents experienced or that our grandparents experienced."


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By Ysabelle Kempe for Smart Cities Dive.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Lately, the city of Dallas has been hearing from local leaders across the U.S. and as far as London, England, said Rosana Savcic, a division manager in the city's code compliance department. What has caught their attention? A city policy that took effect in 2017 requiring landlords to provide working air conditioning equipment.

More cities are looking into establishing a renter's right to cooling equipment as climate change drives record-breaking temperatures across the world. Such rules codify tenants' right to housing that can be cooled to a specific maximum indoor temperature, a number that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Tenants may still be on the hook for their energy bills, however.

Right now, cities that require landlords to provide AC systems are the exception, not the rule, says V. Kelly Turner, a heat policy researcher and associate director of the University of California, Los Angeles' Luskin Center for Innovation.

That may be changing. Montgomery County, Maryland, passed a first-in-the-region law in 2020 requiring many landlords to provide AC equipment capable of cooling units to at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit from June through September. A 2022 Chicago law requires some large residential buildings or buildings for older people to provide AC in common spaces when the outdoor heat index exceeds 80 F. A New Orleans rule went into effect this year mandating AC equipment that can cool bedrooms to at least 80 F.

In New York City's sustainability plan, the nation's largest city indicates its intention to develop a summer indoor maximum temperature policy by 2030. In July, a NYC council member introduced legislation that would require landlords to provide AC equipment in the summer. Los Angeles County officials are in the early stages of developing a similar policy.

The case for cooling

The trend toward cooling requirements is part of a broader recognition that climate change necessitates new protections and policies, experts say.

"What we're learning is we have to develop policies specific to the issue of heat," said Ashley Ward, director of Duke University's Heat Policy Innovation Hub. In addition to rental cooling standards, heat-specific policy needs include worker protections and universal cooling for schools and prisons, Ward notes.

The major challenge proponents of rental cooling standards need to overcome, Ward says, is the public perception that air conditioning is a luxury, not a necessity. That perception "is why we can justify not having air conditioning in prisons. Forty percent of our schools in the U.S. have inadequate HVAC," Ward said. But as heat records get broken again and again, and heat-related deaths escalate, proponents see policymaker attitudes shifting.

Limitations of right-to-cooling policies

While rental cooling standards may be a step toward addressing urban heat impacts on residents, these policies aren't perfect solutions, Ward said.

Even if lower-income renters have AC equipment, they might not turn it on for fear of high energy bills. That's why some experts have urged states and cities to complement rental cooling standards with utility bill assistance programs that take cooling needs into account. States typically use much more of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help people with heating rather than cooling bills. And while the need for support is growing, the pot of available LIHEAP funding shrank from $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $4.1 billion in fiscal year 2024, according to a June report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association and Center for Energy Poverty and Climate.

Cities need to start monitoring low-income households' ability to pay for cooling, Turner said in an email. That data could build a case for better supporting cooling through subsidy programs like LIHEAP.

Utilities can also help make cooling more affordable, explained Gregory Pierce, research and co-executive director of UCLA's Luskin Center and an associate professor of urban planning. State public utilities commissions can play a big role in imposing or encouraging utility-run energy affordability programs, but cities can pitch in on the effort, too, such as by collaborating with utilities on programs that make baseline amounts of energy more affordable for people, Turner said.

Tiered payment programs, for example, charge those who use a lot of electricity a higher rate than those who use less. Hotter weather, however, might mean those tiers need to be adjusted, so that the most affordable tier accounts for the amount of energy needed to cool the typical home, Pierce said.

"Not a lot of utilities have, I think, adjusted those tiers accordingly yet to account for AC, much less electrification," he said.

Any equity-oriented program must involve listening to community members about their specific struggles, Turner added. "There may be solutions we don't even know to think about because we need to hear from those that would be facing those tough choices," such as between turning on the AC and putting food on the table, she said.

Rental cooling standards also present other challenges. Cash-strapped landlords may struggle to undertake complex, expensive retrofits. Waste heat that AC equipment generates increases the urban heat island effect, and adding cooling equipment to buildings can drive up greenhouse gas emissions - although heat pumps allow building owners to simultaneously offer cooling and potentially replace fossil fuel-powered HVAC equipment.

How low should cities go?

Then there's the question of what cities should set as the maximum temperature in rental housing. Dallas' rule requires AC equipment that can keep rooms at least 15 degrees cooler than the outdoor temperature, with a maximum temperature threshold of 85 F. That means that even if it's 105 degrees outside, rental housing must be equipped to stay at 85 F or cooler.

Ward thinks cities should set the maximum temperature lower. She cites 73 F as the threshold for a good night's sleep and recovery. She recommends cities set a maximum temperature around 76 F, since fans can help bring the temperature down another couple of degrees.

However, over-debating the exact maximum temperature can stifle productive policymaking, Turner warned. She said she'd rather set the maximum temperature at 80 F and start a conversation about what it will take to implement the policy, including developing a complaint-reporting process and finding funding.

"To some degree, the question isn't, 'Can we get exactly [the right] temperature?' The question is, 'Can we get something on the books to at least give people a fighting chance of having a safe thermal environment?'" she said. "Once we do that, we can start to tinker."


Ysabelle Kempe wrote this article for Smart Cities Dive.


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Three environmental nonprofits filed suit Wednesday against the California Air Resources Board to oppose the expansion of a program allowing oil and gas companies to offset their pollution by buying credits from huge farms producing natural gas from animal waste.

Last month, the state amended the low carbon fuel standard to expand credits favoring biogas, arguing it removes methane from the waste stream and creates renewable power.

Tyler Lobdell, staff attorney for the nonprofit co-plaintiff Food and Water Watch, said the program is actually a perverse incentive for factory farms to get bigger.

"The biggest operators, the biggest polluters, are the most rewarded," Lobdell pointed out. "That is the incentive structure here. Go out and be as big and as polluting as possible, and you will see the largest reward from our program."

The low carbon fuel standard is intended to reduce carbon pollution by incentivizing the transition to clean cars. The lawsuit argued the credit program prioritizes pollution-heavy practices over sustainable solutions.

Lobdell noted manure only produces methane when large quantities are liquefied at concentrated animal feeding operations. He suggested the state require factory farms to manage their manure in ways which do not rely on anaerobic environments emitting methane.

"The real solution to addressing pollution is to reduce the pollution, not to monetize it and lock it in for generations," Lobdell contended. "We should be requiring these facilities to more sustainably manage their waste. That would have climate benefits, that would also have benefits to local air quality and to local water quality."

The lawsuit asks the court to require the California Air Resources Board to disclose, analyze and mitigate the environmental impact caused by the change to the low-carbon fuel standard. The other two plaintiffs include the nonprofits Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.


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