Changes to Existing Law

Plugging and performance bond for wells--Amount--Conditions. Without limiting its general authority, the Board of Minerals and Environment board may require, or may delegate to the secretary of environment and natural resources, specific authority to require the furnishing of a plugging and performance bond in the amount as follows: (1) For wells at or less than fifty-five hundred feet in depth, an individual bond of ten thousand dollars per well drilled or a thirty thousand dollar blanket; or (2) For wells more than fifty-five hundred feet in depth, an individual bond of fifty thousand dollars per well drilled, or one hundred thousand dollars blanket, of fifty thousand dollars or an amount sufficient to guarantee the costs of well site reclamation, or one hundred thousand dollars blanket, with good and sufficient surety, conditioned for the performance of the duty to plug each dry or abandoned well, to restore the premises, insofar as possible, to the condition that existed before the filing of the application to drill; and conditioned on the proper performance of all of the requirements of §§ 45-9-5 to 45- 9-18, inclusive. The condition of the bond insofar as it relates relating to restoration of the surface is deemed to have been complied with met if the landowner or lessee and the producer or driller adopt a different plan as approved by the board. The board may require additional bond if the circumstances require.