The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Monday announced a new registered apprenticeship program to train workers to plug oil and gas wells, "helping to protect the environment and public health while providing workers with in-demand skills and family-sustaining wages."
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The new program will be run out of the United Mine Workers of America Career Centers, Inc.’s (UMWACC) Ruff Creek Training Center in Greene County where Gov. Josh Shapiro visited earlier this month to highlight bipartisan investments in workforce development.
UMWACC’s Gas Well Capping Technician program – the first-ever registered apprenticeship program for UMWA – provides workers with the knowledge to plug abandoned and orphaned wells that have the potential to cause health, safety, or environmental concerns and to mitigate harmful emissions and provide an economic boost to rural Appalachian communities transitioning away from fossil fuel economies.
“We have a huge abandoned well problem in Pennsylvania, and we need qualified and well-trained people to plug them. There are more than 350,000 orphaned and abandoned wells across our Commonwealth – and they make up nearly 8% of our total methane emissions.” said DEP Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley said in a news release. “Sooner or later, every orphaned well is going to be a threat to the environment and public health, and we need people with the skills and training to plug the wells and restore the surrounding landscape. In addition to removing the threat that old wells pose, some active wells could find new life as geothermal wells, capturing buried heat for clean energy.”
The Gas Well Capping Technician program is officially registered with the Apprenticeship and Training Office (ATO), housed within the Department of Labor & Industry (L&I), and will train workers on the following topics: safety, well capping techniques, cement properties and skills, and land remediation."
In 2022 the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded Pennsylvania an initial grant of $25 million to plug orphaned and abandoned gas wells. More information about the orphan and abandoned well plugging program is on the DEP website: Rewriting Pennsylvania's Legacy (pa.gov).