“Let’s be quiet for a few seconds,” said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection oil and gas inspector Jonathan Shub, pointing to a large pipe jutting out of the ground amid some trees.

Shub and a few visitors had just trudged up a muddy embankment, kicking up leaves and stepping over fallen limbs. Everyone stopped at a level spot, looking up at the backside of an older house in Ohio Township, a few miles north of Pittsburgh.

As the group’s chattering faded, a feint gurgling sound could be heard coming from the pipe, a vent for an orphaned gas well far below the leaves and mud. The water filling the vent bubbled like the proverbial witches’ cauldron as the leaking gas below worked its way to the surface.

This is just one of about 26,000 orphaned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania documented by the DEP. Orphaned wells have no owner of record and are no longer producing for commercial or private use.

Up from the ground comes a bubbling gas: Feds giving PA $400M to plug dangerous orphan wells. York Daily Record, 3/14/2022.