{"id":7679,"date":"2016-12-29T09:01:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T17:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/feds-to-begin-cleanup-of-old-wells-on-the-north-slope\/"},"modified":"2016-12-29T09:01:20","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T17:01:20","slug":"feds-to-begin-cleanup-of-old-wells-on-the-north-slope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/feds-to-begin-cleanup-of-old-wells-on-the-north-slope\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds to begin cleanup of old wells on the North Slope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>JUNEAU \u2014<\/strong> Federal officials are planning another trip to a reserve on Alaska\u2019s North Slope to plug several old oil wells as winter weather settles in the area.<\/p>\n<p>The Bureau of Land Management oversees the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where it\u2019s responsible for cleaning up 50 wells drilled by the Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey decades ago that could possibly leak. Stacie McIntosh, the BLM\u2019s Arctic Office manager, said the work can only get done during the winter to protect the tundra\u2019s permafrost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have a short window of opportunity to do it and it\u2019s very expensive,\u201d McIntosh told Alaska\u2019s Energy Desk. \u201cFor most of (the wells), they\u2019re in a stable condition. A lot of them, though, just have plugs that rely on ice and other things down in the well bore. And as we know, there\u2019s the potential to be deep thaw, etc., associated with climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen wells have been cleaned up so far, and the agency is looking to complete up to five more \u201cin the near future,\u201d said Nicole Hayes, BLM\u2019s Legacy Wells project coordinator.<\/p>\n<p>State officials are hoping this winter\u2019s cleanup goes smoother than last winter.<\/p>\n<p>The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had sent BLM multiple violation notices for last winter\u2019s cleanup, saying the agency didn\u2019t follow proper procedures.<\/p>\n<p>BLM officials said the incidents did not cause environmental damage.<\/p>\n<p>Commission Chair Cathy Foerster said the state is confident the BLM will have more success plugging the wells this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe AOGCC is optimistic that this season\u2019s legacy well cleanup will go better than last year\u2019s,\u201d Foerster said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JUNEAU \u2014 Federal officials are planning another trip to a reserve on Alaska\u2019s North Slope to plug several old oil wells as winter weather settles in the area. The Bureau of Land Management oversees the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where it\u2019s responsible for cleaning up 50 wells drilled by the Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7679"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}