There are three general stages of a well's life on US public land: 1) the permitting process to drill, 2) active extraction of fossil fuel resource, and 3) plugging and abandonment of well. There is no national standard for oil and gas reclamation in the United States similar to mining and therefore current reclamation practices and standards fail to achieve long-term effectiveness across the western United States. A reclaimed well pad's land potential is determined by 3 properties: static (e.g., climate), dynamic (e.g., soil stability), and process (e.g., water retention). Understanding a reclaimed well pad's land potential enables federal land agencies to outline surface reclamation goals and requirements consistently and clearly. Monitoring for land potential increases the capacity of the private industry to practice adaptive management by enabling companies to respond to plant community changes while maintaining long-term progress toward recovery. The Rangelands archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information.
Practical, non-technical peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol 1, 1979 up to 3 years from the current year. More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.