Recovery of vegetation on plugged and abandoned oil and gas well sites on the Colorado Plateau is influenced by time, moisture, nonnative plants and the type of plant community that was originally in place before well sites were constructed, according to a recently published study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Recovery of vegetation on plugged and abandoned oil and gas well sites on the Colorado Plateau is influenced by time, moisture, nonnative plants and the type of plant community that was originally in place before well sites were constructed, according to a recently published study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The Colorado Plateau is an ecologically diverse region used for energy development, agriculture and recreation, including approximately 30 national parks,” said USGS scientist and author of the study Miguel Villarreal. “Understanding the factors that encourage successful re-vegetation is critical for resource managers to make informed decisions about this region of economic and ecological importance.”
There are more than 26,000 abandoned and 63,000 active gas and oil wells on the Colorado Plateau. When these wells are plugged and abandoned, re-vegetation is necessary to limit soil erosion, recover forage for livestock and provide wildlife habitat. Most of the Colorado Plateau is made up of moisture-limited ecosystems, making vegetation recovery efforts difficult.
USGS scientists used satellite, soil and climate data to study three to six years of re-vegetation at 365 well sites in parts of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico that were drilled in 1985 or later and abandoned in 1997 or later. A top-down view of the amount of the soil surface covered by plants, called vegetation cover, on abandoned well sites was compared to vegetation cover on nearby reference sites that did not contain wells to determine the relative recovery of vegetation. This study used a scientific approach that was developed last year by USGS scientists.
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