This story was originally published by Osage News, and is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.
At the entrance to Harvest Land Farms, Fred Beartrack prepares to plug another orphaned well. Records indicated a cement plug covered it, but excavation and a casing cutout revealed no cement.
“There was no cement, so the data was wrong,” Beartrack of the Nation’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, said in a video posted to the Osage Nation’s Facebook page. The well was open down to 2,400 feet. Instead of a quick cap, the crew now has to clean the well out to the bottom and properly fill it with cement. Beartrack and his crew said this work could take anywhere from two days to two months.
“We don’t really know what’s down there,” he said. “People could have thrown anything in the well before we got here.”
Beartrack said crews found only about a foot of cement at th... Read more
