WCWCW Feature of the Week
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"Trucks move sand toward a processing plant in Valley Junction in the town of Byron in Monroe County in July. The plant, operated by Hi-Crush Chambers, is located next to a frac sand mine near Highway 173. The site is one of dozens of sand operations popping up in Wisconsin in response to the demand for sand for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking." Jason Smathers/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.Frac Sand Mining Assaults West Central Wisconsin
Health effects feared
Residents in several Wisconsin counties say they have been alarmed by the speed with which mining companies have snapped up land.
Some communities lack local land-use controls such as zoning that would allow them to manage the land rush. And despite concerns about the health and environmental impacts of such facilities, the state Department of Natural Resources has only a few regulations for sand mining operations.
Mining companies must file a reclamation plan with the county that spells how much land will be disturbed and how it will be rejuvenated once mining is completed, and they apply to be covered under a general DNR permit covering storm water and wastewater. Other permits regulating air emissions and groundwater use may be required from the DNR.
But none specifically limits how much crystalline silica gets into the air, the main health worry for those living near the facilities."
from WisconsinWatch.org: Produced by Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Areas under Frac Sand Mining Assault
Writing as a resident of West Central Wisconsin I am extremely alarmed by the sudden eruption of sand mining in my area, and I mean CLOSE to where I live--these beautiful and ancient Driftless Areas of our State. Almost without anyone knowing, or having a chance to check out the dangers possible both from fracking in general (see the movie "Gasland" if you have not already seen it--a must view to see a documentary of the dangers in fracking) and sand mining used for fracking, it is upon us. Sand mining has already sprung up in over 14 counties around the state. While Fracking is dangerous to all life, sand mining also poses its own threats and dangers. In this time of deregulation under the present Governor Scott Walker in the name of "jobs" (where are those jobs, Scotty?) sand in my community is being mined for its use in fracking in other parts of our country. The impact on the land cannot be underestimated. We here cherish the land around us! We do not live here to have trucks racing up and down back roads that were once peaceful and beautiful. Most of us out in the country are here for the land around us and its beauty.
Just this week (Jan., 2012) we heard of (it was published in a local paper) a natural gas pipeline that would cut through parts of Mill Bluff State Park to supply the needs of a sand mining operation for fracking operations. Talking to someone from the DNR today, the man we talked to said he had not yet even heard of this and said "they" couldn't even keep up with the sand mining situation. Again, thats just how fast this is happening. They strike before we have time to consider what is going on and what it will mean in the long run for our land, our state, our country and our lives. The crystalline silica that can accumulate in the air can produce an illness known as silicosis. It is not just that residents close to frac sand mining operations may or may not be susceptible, it is that no one is seriously going to monitor these sand mines. There is also the inevitable traffic, noise and general commotion that accompany any big mining operation in our rural environment.
The big companies behind this are moving before anyone realizes what is happening. Anyone who has surfed through the features of this site knows that we here love our land. I, for one, do not want this. To ruin air and water, land and breath is an abomination to this land and we must stop it.
We need to take a big picture look at what is going on here on planet earth and then look at what is going down in our rural landscapes.
While "The earth receives an incredible supply of solar energy. The Sun, an average star, is a fusion reactor that has been burning over 4 billion years. It provides enough energy in one minute to supply the worlds energy needs for one year. In one day, it provides more energy than our current population would consume in 27 years. In fact, the amount of solar radiation striking the earth over a three-day period is equivalent to the energy stored in all fossil energy sources."(from Alternative Energy)
To quote a brief excerpt from an Op-ed piece by Bill McKibben's Climate Change: Why Oil Companies Don't Want Us Talking about It in the Worldpress.org news group:
"When I talked about a carbon bubble at the beginning of this essay, this is what I meant. Here are some of the relevant numbers, courtesy of the Capital Institute: We're already seeing widespread climate disruption, but if we want to avoid utter, civilization-shaking disaster, many scientists have pointed to a 2 degree rise in global temperatures as the most we could possibly deal with.
If we spew 565 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere, we'll quite possibly go right past that reddest of red lines. But the oil companies, private and state-owned, have current reserves on the books equivalent to 2,795 gigatons--five times more than we can ever safely burn. It has to stay in the ground."
We the people of THIS land must stop this before the vested interests of any fossil fuel behemoth ("any creature or thing of monstrous size or power") would have us poison the earth and ruin our lives to milk every last dollar from their vested interests. We can and must put an end to this kind of corporate greed and global ignorance.
There are other paths we can take. In fact we must take. We need the vision to see a future where energy usage and production does not threaten destruction on all life... and that means you and me and the great blue sea. We have the choice to speak up now, and reclaim the power that we the people have, to bring about this change before all we loved and cherished in this land is gone. Sand mining for fracking is one more wrong turn on the road to our being a whole people and a whole world.
Somehow we have to get beyond the place of "whoever has the most money wins."
