The Interior Department is giving 24 states a total of $560 million to start cleaning high-priority derelict oil and gas wells abandoned on state and private land, the department said Thursday.
It said up to 10,000 wells could be dealt with as the government begins allocating $4.7 billion set aside to create an orphan well cleanup program under the bipartisan infrastructure plan approved late last year. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are more than 3 million abandoned oil and gas wells around the nation.
