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Orphaned oil and gas wells are generally unplugged wells with no responsible party to plug the well and restore the site. By remaining unplugged, these wells can act as leakage pathways connecting oil and gas reservoirs, groundwater aquifers, and the atmosphere. As a result, orphaned wells pose serious environmental risks by being a potential source of methane emissions, groundwater contamination, and ecosystem degradation. The liability of environmental remediation and plugging of documented orphaned wells, which are wells a state has determined to have no solvent owner of record, falls under the responsibility of the state and often, the general public. In order to quantify environmental impacts of orphaned wells and develop effective mitigation strategies, we compile and analyze oil and gas data from government datasets and publicly available information to locate documented orphaned wells across …