The Muskegon oil boom that began in the 1920s and resulted in the environmental catastrophe at the former Zephyr oil refinery has another unfortunate legacy: hundreds, perhaps as many as 1,000, abandoned oil and natural gas wells practically on top of which homes and schools have been built.

Government officials haven't been able to get control of the lurking dangers that have already polluted Bear Lake and could result in contaminated drinking water and soil, hazardous petroleum vapors and even natural gas explosions.

“The risk is unacceptable,” said Jerry Garman, an environmental health scientist who recently completed a study of local abandoned oil and gas wells. “The current situation is not good.”

Local officials have known for years about the abandoned wells, borings and their accompanying pits that could be prone to cave-ins throughout much of Muskegon County.

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But no one did much of anything about them until a group of local officials and Garman's Westshore Consulting formed the Muskegon County Oil Field Work Group. They received a grant to map a particularly dense area of abandoned wells last summer and released a report of their findings in October.

Garman, who led that mapping study, was stunned to discover there were far more than the 350 wells and borings believed to exist in a 28-square-mile area that includes parts of Laketon and Muskegon townships and the cities of North Muskegon and Muskegon.

There actually are 621 such wells, Garman discovered by researching a database of well permits kept by the state of Michigan.

There are other clusters of abandoned oil and gas wells and dry holes — areas drilled but at the time didn't find oil — including one in the Ravenna area between Pontaluna and Ensley roads and another off Staple Road southwest of Twin Lake.

“Contamination may be present as a result of releases of crude petroleum and brine across the study area,” according to the report. “Such contamination may be localized, or spread over a larger area as the result of its migration with groundwater or surface water, or releases from multiple sources/wells.”

Of particular concern is that many homes in these areas rely on groundwater for drinking water.

“We've had well drillers hit crude when they were drilling (water) wells twice,” said Vicki Webster, environmental health supervisor for Public Health – Muskegon County.

A map in Webster's office — which health officials refer to when approving water well permits — shows suspected abandoned oil wells dotted throughout the county. If the health department receives a request to drill a water well close to an abandoned oil well, it orders tests be done first.

Webster shakes her head when she talks about how some homeowner protest orders that they test the groundwater.

“They go over like a lead balloon,” she said.

An oil boom

Zephyr Oil Refinery and a nearby Marathon refinery on Holton Road in Muskegon Township are believed to have been built to refine crude oil from the dense cluster of wells in the Laketon Township area.

Oil was first discovered at the Reeths No. 1 well near Giles Road in 1928 where the flow rate reached 330 barrels per day, according to a historical paper by Central Michigan University. That led to more and more wells — an estimated 70 working rigs by November 1928 — making “Muskegon a boom town,” according to the paper. At one point, more than 1,000 people worked in the area's oil industry that lasted until around 1970, though there are still a few working wells in Muskegon County.

TYPES OF WELLS

• Oil wells: Wells that actively produced crude petroleum. Some may still be in use.



• Dry holes: Very numerous borings that never converted to active oil or gas production because petroleum was either nonexistent or in small volume.



• Gas wells: Wells that actively produced natural gas.



• Unknown type: Borings of an unidentified nature that may or may not have been used for oil or gas production.



• Brine disposal: Borings used to re-inject brine, a byproduct of oil or natural gas production.

The trouble is that when wells, which typically were 1,500 to 2,000 feet deep, were abandoned, they weren't plugged under current standards that include pumping significant amounts of cement into the well, Garman said. Back then, mud, iron balls, bushes and tree stumps were shoved down the hole, he said.

With that method, oil can move up through the boring, sometimes helped by water that seeps in and spreads out through loose soil common in the area. Eventually, the oil can move out into surrounding groundwater and surface water, said Garman, who is a partner with Westshore Consulting.

Built on top of a “significant number” of the abandoned wells were residential neighborhoods, one around Horton and Dykstra roads in Laketon Township and another near Giles and Holton roads in Muskegon Township, Garman reported in his mapping study.

“I think there's probably a lot of homeowners up there who don't realize,” Garman said.

The study, funded by a grant from the Community Foundation for Muskegon County, noted others were “co-located” with churches and schools. Old wells were located near Reeths-Puffer Elementary and Intermediate schools at Getty Street and Giles Road as well as near Baker and Muskegon Community colleges.

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Report on abandoned oil wells in .PDF format:

In addition, to soil and water contamination, the study noted the potential for wells emitting harmful vapors.

“Given the presence of wells near or under buildings, the potential for natural gas or crude petroleum vapors to occur in buildings cannot be ruled out,” the study notes. “Risks may include long-term exposure effects on health, and more acute concerns such as fire or explosion.

“Water supply wells can act as conduits and allow for natural gas vapors to be released at water faucets or taps.”

Bear Lake contamination

For more than a decade, Kent and Janice Belote have watched oil bubble out of an abandoned well and into the Bear Lake bayou — commonly known as Fenner's Ditch — behind their Laketon Township home. For more than a decade, they have waited for help in stopping the flow.

“You can actually see the oil bubbling up,” Janice Belote said.

Time and again, they said they got their hopes up that a solution would be found, only to be disappointed. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has placed containment and absorbent booms in the water behind the Belotes' home in an attempt to control the oil's spread.

“Every year it's been getting worse and worse,” Janice Belote said.

Janice Belote said she can smell oil in her household water, and even started to see a film on water they poured into their coffee pot. Tests of the water showed its safe, but she and her husband decided to quit drinking it.

She said officials are hesitant to try to plug the abandoned well for fear they would create “one big mess.” According to the map study, some well borings can't be located, and may never be.

“These are difficult technical issues,” Garman said. “How you locate the exact old bore hole and plug it is very difficult.”

The mapping report said some borings may never be located.

The Belotes bought their home on West Wedgewood Drive in the winter months in 1990.

“We could take the boat right out to Lake Michigan from there,” Belote said. “It was just what we wanted.”

But within a year of buying their dream home, the Belotes began to notice the oil slick in the bayou that leads to Bear Lake. They ended up selling their boat when they couldn't access their boat slip due to the booms that are in place.

“It just took the value right down, and there's nothing we can do about it,” Janice Belote said. “We can't even sell it.”

Both Belotes, who are retired, grew up in Laketon Township but neither were aware there were abandoned oil wells, Janice Belote said.

“When I was growing up, there were oil wells on Green Creek Road,” she said.

Homes in the area around Green Creek Road, in what's known as Green Ridge subdivision, suffered severe contamination of their water from abandoned oil wells. It was such a concern, that the state recently paid $3.9 million to extend municipal water to 150 houses, a project that is just being finished.

“The drinking water is a very big concern,” said Kim Arter, Laketon Township's supervisor and an instigator of the oil field work group.

Unacceptable risk

The mapping study reports other “potential concerns” related to abandoned wells, including their impediment to community and business development. There's also the hazards related to rusting old exploration and production equipment commonly found in rural areas. And there's the potential for cave-ins of old brine pits and borings.

Garman said he and others were digging around an old well trying to clean it up for someone wanting to construct a home on the property when they discovered a large “void.” Groundwater had entered an old boring and created a “subsurface cavern” that nearly swallowed up a backhoe, he said.

Despite the long list of potential hazards associated with abandoned wells, Garman and Arter walk a fine line between trying not to sound too alarmist and waking up government officials to the ongoing and unaddressed problems.

“One of the concerns we had in doing this report is people might take it and have it wreck their day,” Garman said.

The report's conclusion states that investigations related to abandoned oil wells, be they related to water well permitting or private investment, found “cases of both minimal risk, and unacceptably high risk.”

“While most borings likely present a limited concern, the potential remains for high risks to exist and be unknown to the community,” the report states.

The report recommends education of the public about health and environmental risks associated with the abandoned wells and that local government agencies consider the presence of wells in their land use planning.

It also calls for further investigation of the old wells and resources to be put toward fixing those that are known to cause problems.

Arter said she has been to Lansing on more than occasion to discuss the issue with government officials, and otherwise plans to get the word out. She also is going to apply for any grant she can find to address abandoned wells known to be leaking, which Garman said likely includes one in the area of Dykstra and Whitehall roads leaking into a Bear Creek tributary.

“These things have been here for years and years and years,” Arter said. “People know they're here but no one seems to be trying to do anything.

“There may never be a problem with any out there. But we do know we've got the problem in Fenner's Ditch. Are there more? I don't know.”

Email: lmoore@muskegonchronicle.com

