Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Emit Carcinogens and Other Harmful Pollutants, Groundbreaking Study Shows

By Liza Gross

On a cloudy late-winter morning in 2004, Charles and Dorothy Harper were babysitting their 17-month-old grandson, Baelee, when the furnace in their rural Western Pennsylvania home revved up. The newly retired pastor and his wife did not realize that flammable gas had infiltrated the basement of the house, which they had recently built.