WE DID IT!! We capped a leaking methane well!
The Martha #1 Well in the Waterford Township of Erie County, Pennsylvania has been capped!
The preliminary analysis is that the climate change benefit of capping the well—which has probably been leaking since the 1990s—will be the carbon equivalent to taking almost 1,400 gasoline-burning cars off the road every year.
That in and of itself is fantastic. Methane is 84 times worse than carbon dioxide (CO2) when it comes to climate change. Capping a well stops the methane from escaping as soon as the well cap goes on!
But reducing the emission of methane into the environment has many benefits beyond climate change. It reduces air pollution, improves public health, and creates the opportunity to restore the land around the well, land that has shriveled under the shroud of deadly methane emissions year after year.
Capping a well also shows other communities that it can be done. President Biden’s new climate bill offers $1.2 billion for states to clean up orphan wells. Projects like ours show communities how to do it, efficiently and cost-effectively.
Plus–and this is a big plus–capping wells is unlikely to be restricted by pro-industry opinions of the Supreme Court. No one will come along and uncap a well. No group or business is going to sue to prevent a leaking methane well from being capped. It’s not always the case that passing a law is the end of the discussion. But when it comes to capping a well, it is.
If you remember, I chose to cap a leaking methane well as a way to celebrate my 70th birthday. I wanted a meaningful and measurable way to actually cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately — and capping a well was it. Once the well was capped, the emissions from that well stopped – just like that.
Please know that your support for my “COOL” campaign was crucial to getting it done. Even though the project also had support from the French Creek Valley Conservancy and Vitaleco, Curtis Shuck, the founder of the Well Done Foundation told me that “Any way that you slice it, the Martha Smith Project was a great success and we could not have done it without you and the donors that you inspired.”
Thank you so much for supporting this effort. It was wonderfully generous (and responsible) of you…and sure made my 70th birthday a memorable one!
