It’s not what you think.
A towering steel drill rig that’s been perched along the side of U.S. Highway 550 in recent weeks isn’t probing for gas, or oil, or even a route to the Far East.
The operation is instead part of a state program to plug thousands of abandoned, or “orphaned” wells across Colorado. Work to fill in the decades-old well just north of Cedar Hill Cemetery is expected to be completed by Labor Day, according to Josh Murdock, general manager of Utah-based contractor Delsco Northwest.
Murdock said once the “plug and abandon” project is complete, crews will return to perform reclamation work on the surface and leave the area eventually looking as if it had never been drilled.
The work on the old well – which sits on land owned by Ridgway’s Wolf family – is being conducted as part of a statewide initiative supervised by the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission. Most sites filled in by the ECMC are oil and gas ventures, but records indicate that the one on the Wolf property was a private water well.
In recent years, the program’s backlog has grown from over 300 to 2,167 sites across the state, with a 2025 budget of more than $15.3 million in state and federal funding. Most of the sites and wells are concentrated in northeast Colorado and along the Utah border northwest of Grand Junction.
Ouray County, by comparison, has just a handful of sites targeted by the ECMC. In addition to the well along Highway 550, there are two sites east of Ridgway, one of which has already been plugged.
The well Delsco has been working to fill was originally completed in 1959, according to public records, at a depth of over 2,400 feet.
Plaindealer co-publisher Erin McIntyre contributed reporting to this story.
Chart Riggall is a journalist with Report for America, a nonprofit program that helps boost reporting resources in underserved areas. He’s also part of the Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative, a partnership between Report for America, High Country News and local news organizations across the West. Support his work with a tax-deductible donation here.
