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Older oil and gas wells at higher risk of causing groundwater contamination

New oil and gas development techniques like horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing have dominated public concern in recent years about groundwater contamination in oil and gas basins. However, older vertical wells are more likely to cause groundwater contamination than newer wells, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder.

The paper, , looked at the frequency of well integrity issues in Colorado’s Wattenberg Field, the fourth most productive crude oil field and ninth most productive gas field in the U.S. The Wattenberg Field is located in central Colorado in the Denver Basin.

The study examined publically available data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), a regulatory division of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, and was funded entirely by the National Science Foundation’s AirWaterGas Sustainability Research Network, based in Boulder, Colo.