{"id":240577,"date":"2026-05-06T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/local-environmental-groups-using-drone-technology-to-find-abandoned-wells\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:00:17","slug":"local-environmental-groups-using-drone-technology-to-find-abandoned-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/local-environmental-groups-using-drone-technology-to-find-abandoned-wells\/","title":{"rendered":"Local environmental groups using drone technology to find abandoned wells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local environmental groups using drone technology to find abandoned wells<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/local-environmental-groups-using-drone-technology-find-abandoned-wells\/RTF37GIDNVFNNFBZPBRONELN5E\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-06 18:13:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.wpxi.com<\/a><\/p>\n

COLLIER TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 If you\u2019ve ever been to Settler\u2019s Cabin Park near Robinson, you likely didn\u2019t know what was under the ground beneath you.<\/p>\n

According to environmental groups, an estimated 100 abandoned wells are below the park. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not visible from the surface. This area was coal-mined and the surface was wiped away and when it was refilled, the wells were left underneath the ground but not plugged,\u201d Adam Peltz with the Environmental Defense Fund said.<\/p>\n

According to Peltz, the unplugged wells could be leaking salt water, toxins and methane into the soil and air. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the well is located near a house, the gas can go into a basement and cause an explosion. So that\u2019s the worst case,\u201d Peltz said. \u201cA lot of these wells can also omit benzyne and other carcinogens, which can cause significant health problems.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Peltz and other environmentalists are using drones to fly above the park, in an attempt to locate the wells with the goal of getting federal funding to get them filled. <\/p>\n

\u201cPennsylvania is not getting its share of the federal funds because of the tremendous undercount of orphaned wells,\u201d Peltz said. \u201cWhen we start finding all these hundreds of thousands of wells, and start putting them in the database, there are federal funds available to plug them for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem goes beyond Settlers Cabin Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been oil and gas drilling in Western PA since the 1850s, but there was 100 years of drilling with no regulations at all. During that time, we think over 300,000 wells were drilled,\u201d Peltz said.<\/p>\n

He estimates the cost to fill all the wells across Pennsylvania could cost 10s of billions of dollars. <\/p>\n

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n

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\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local environmental groups using drone technology to find abandoned wells https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/local-environmental-groups-using-drone-technology-find-abandoned-wells\/RTF37GIDNVFNNFBZPBRONELN5E\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-06 18:13:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cmg-cmg-tv-10080-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/v2\/https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com%2Fcmg%2FUIYW3S25ANHKXGCNF2KOBZHUPU.jpeg?auth=bc068aaf44d66621f4dc67162086968e984840d59e1984b352ef7b605fb571a7&width=1200&height=630&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101,78],"class_list":["post-240577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-health","tag-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240579,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240577\/revisions\/240579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}