Muskingum: The End of an Island Refuge’s Fossil Fuel Legacy

In the middle of a mostly industrial stretch of the Ohio River sits Muskingum Island, a two-mile sliver of forested land which has a history of wildlife and conservation that has been entwined with resource extraction for more than 100 years.

Journalist and photographer Kristian Thacker, who grew up near the island between Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Marietta, Ohio, spent two years exploring Muskingum’s history, its status as a wildlife refuge, and efforts to cap 13 gas and oil wells located on its land and in its waters.

There are over 6,500 documented orphan wells in West Virginia, with an estimated tens of thousands of undocumented wells beyond that. Muskingum Island is public land, which presented a unique opportunity to witness the plugging process firsthand. The presence of protected freshwater mussels and the island’s wildlife refuge status highlighted the environmental regulations that workers had to follow.