ODNR says well-plugging pace ramping up; officials cite contractor capacity as a constraint
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Summary
Director Mary Mertz told the committee ODNR increased well-plugging from roughly dozens per year to over 400 last year and aims for 500 this year, citing contractor availability and a statutory public-safety prioritization as key factors.
Representative Raider asked for details on the state’s orphan-well plugging program during the committee meeting on Oct. 12, 2025.
Mary Mertz, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the state previously plugged roughly “20, 50 a year” but “last year, we plugged over 400 wells.” She said the increase followed legislative direction and additional funding that built a larger available balance in the severance tax fund, which she described as having built up “somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000,000.”
Mertz said the department has struggled to scale work partly because of the number of qualified contractors available for well-plugging. “One of the problems is the number of contractors we have dedicated to this work,” she said, adding ODNR is trying to “make it easier for them to comply with state requirements while still making sure they're qualified.”
The director told the committee ODNR set an internal goal of 500 plugs for the current year and said the department would like to increase capacity further over time, “I'd love someday to get up to a thousand wells a year,” she said, while noting it would be a multi-decade effort. Mertz also said the department anticipates receiving “over $600,000,000 in state and federal funding between now and 2035,” but she cautioned federal funding timing is uncertain.
On prioritization, Mertz said statute requires the state to focus on public safety when selecting wells for plugging and that ODNR has some flexibility to bundle nearby wells for efficiency.
Representative Raider asked specifically how the department planned to spend existing severance funds that had accumulated; Mertz said the department has increased its contracting and outreach to expand capacity and that the program is now bidding on larger packages of wells to improve efficiency.
The committee did not take formal action on the well-plugging program during the meeting; Mertz framed the ramp-up as an ongoing operational priority.