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For many Oklahomans, their land is their passion, livelihood and home. This is the very reason why Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry, through the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, has made it its mission to clean up orphaned and abandoned well sites by removing bygone remnants of past energy-production.

For the past 25 years, voluntary contributions from Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners have allowed the OERB to return land across the state to its natural beauty and productivity.

“What we had was nothing but waste,” says Roy Rogers, a pastor at a church in Weleetka, OK. “Oilfield stuff was laying out there. Then somebody was telling us about them — OERB.”

After Rogers and his wife, Joyce, reached out, the OERB removed oilfield debris and built a pond over a barren saltwater scar- leaving no trace of past oil and natural gas operations.

“They did exactly what they said they were going to do,” Rogers remembers. “And it didn’t cost me a penny.”

The Rogers family property is one of 17,000 restorations the OERB has performed in the past 25 years at a cost of more than $120 million.

Over the years, we’ve been honored to have the landowners and families share their experiences in their own words.

Matt McGuire, a rancher from Perry, OK, remembers working with the OERB to restore his land in 2016. For him, the land is his livelihood.

“This whole operation is what feeds my family,” McGuire says. “The effort [the OERB] put in to make my place better is amazing. I’m ecstatic because it looks good.”

Corey Holman, a rancher in Asher, OK, got help from the OERB in 2013.

“It’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything,” Holman says.

For 25 years, the mission set forth by the oil and natural gas industry, and their voluntary contributions, has impacted thousands of families – returning the natural beauty to land all across Oklahoma.

To learn more about this mission or restoring land of your own, visit oerb.com/well-site-clean-up.

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EnergyHQ is powered by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board – OERB – which is voluntarily funded by the state's oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners. The OERB provides free environmental restoration of abandoned well sites and works to educate the state's citizens about the oil and natural gas industry. For more on the OERB's mission and how it is funded, visit OERB.com.