Abandoned oil wells to be plugged at Big South Fork NRA
ONEIDA, Tenn. - The road leading to the oil well was overgrown with mountain laurel and sawbriers. A short walk led to a rusty storage tank, and next to that was a quarter-acre area where the drilling equipment was located nearly 40 years ago.
The only evidence of the well hole itself was the wellhead - a piece of metal poking out of the ground that the surface machinery linked to.
"The way I find a lot of these old well sites, I look for areas overgrown with Virginia pines," said Etta Spradlin, biological services technician with the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. "A hunter could walk right by here and not notice a thing."
This summer, the National Park Service and the state of Tennessee plan to plug and reclaim at least 45 orphaned oil and gas wells scattered throughout the 125,000-acre Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Access roads to the well sites also will be reclaimed as part of the project.