Nebraska oil and gas conservation commission nogcc seeks an initial grant funding of 25 million to administer the section 40601 c 3 for the state of nebraska nebraska has three distinct oil and gas…

Nebraska oil and gas conservation commission nogcc seeks an initial grant funding of 25 million to administer the section 40601 c 3 for the state of nebraska nebraska has three distinct oil and gas producing basins located from east to west including forrest city basin, cambridge arch and denver julesburg basin nogcc will use the grant funds to plug, remediate, and reclaim orphaned wells located on state owned or privately owned land identify and characterize undocumented orphaned wells on state and private land rank orphaned wells based on factors including public health and safety, potential environmental harm, and other land use priorities make information regarding the use of funds received available on a public website acquire the means to measure and track emissions of methane and other gases associated with orphaned wells remediate soil and restore native species habitat that has been degraded due to the presence of orphaned wells and associated pipelines, facilities, and infrastructure, remediate land adjacent to orphaned wells and decommission or remove associated pipelines, facilities, and infrastructure develop the abilities to identify and address any disproportionate burden of adverse human health or environmental effects of orphaned wells on communities of color, low income communities, and tribal and indigenous communities contracts would be issued to service companies capable of carrying out the work needed, these contracts would include workover rigs, cementing services, wireline services, roustabout, dirt working contractors, and some consulting services to provide the most cost effective services, these companies used would ideally be based in the producing basins that the wells needing plugging and abandonment pand a is also located women and minority owned contractors would be favored nogcc has previously implemented a risk based inspection and plugging program this system is used with the under ground injection control UIC program that uses GIS coverages of source water protection areas and all well types within those areas nogcc uses gwpc s rbdms data management system to manage our agency s information technology we will adopt the rbdms plugging application with nebraska specific customization, this software will manage well plugging prioritization, packaging, bidding and accounting because this software is integrate with our existing data information, orphan wells that have location, construction and field inspection records are available at a single source plans detailing plugging operations for orphan wells including dates, depths, sacks of cement to be used can be viewed by the public using our website in the future, IT is feasible to add information regarding methane as additional GIS coverage nogcc s is a very small agency with a staff of eight FTE s in order to administrate this grant, we would add two new positions one position would have direct authority over all field operations including the detailed plugging and remediation operations the other position would provide supervision over the financial aspect of the grant including contracts, accounts payable, reporting etc both positions would be sourced through the state of nebraska personnel nogcc would also need to engage contract consulting engineers to aid in pand a procedures