Across the state, thousands of abandoned oil wells remain unplugged despite being out of service. Those wells, over time, have the potential to leak oil and toxic byproducts of the drilling process, threatening water supplies.

A group of Colorado property owners and farmers is suing Denver-based oil company HRM Resources for allegedly transferring hundreds of depleted oil wells to a shell company to avoid millions in clean-up costs, according to the Guardian.

A century after the events of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” abandoned oil wells litter the Osage Nation.

Until wells are properly plugged, many leak oil and brine onto farmland and into waterways and emit toxic and explosive gasses, rendering redevelopment impossible. A noxious lake inundates West Texas ranchland, oil bubbles into a downtown Los Angeles apartment building and gas seeps into the yards of suburban Ohio homes.

Abandoned oil and gas wells often pollute groundwater and leak methane into the atmosphere, helping to drive climate change. Congress approved $4.7 billion in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to plug them, but there are no state or federal requirements to revisit those plugs and ensure the wells aren’t leaking.