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Once upon a time, extractive industries drove booming economies across the rural West. Now they are abandoning the region, leaving behind a ravaged landscape, decaying wells, jobless workers, and a big hole in county and state budgets.
Local officials have tried to fill that void with tourism and clean energy but neither are a substitute for high-paying drilling and mining jobs. Now, there is a new industry on the horizon that could actually restore the region’s economy—one that employs displaced roughnecks, miners, and loggers to clean up their former employers’ messes and repair the landscape.
Last year’s federal infrastructure bill is jump-starting this restoration economy by allocating over $20 billion for cleaning up old wells and abandoned mines. Money is already rolling out for orphan well clean up, including $560 million for high-priority wells in 24 states. There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned, orphaned, and inactive wells that can leak methane and other harmful materials on public lands across the West, as well as over 60,000 abandoned mine sites—including 500 uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.
Collin O'Mara on the Inflation Reduction Act
National Wildlife Federation President Collin O'Mara joins Aaron and Kate in the latest episode of CWP's podcast, The Landscape, to talk all things Inflation Reduction Act, including: what's in it, how the bill came together behind the scenes, how his group and others got Senator Joe Manchin on board with some of the bolder provisions in the bill, whether it's ultimately a good or bad thing, how it should be implemented, and—last but certainly not least—what to watch for as the permitting side deal comes into focus.
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We need to make some compromises, and we need to decide what exactly the Upper Basin states have left of their allocations. And it may be they don’t have anything depending on how much water is available.”
