Amid controversy surrounding a mining bill in the current legislative session, one Wisconsin mining company is currently looking into constructing a sand mine in Dane County, despite being rejected by landowners in the area.
The Wisconsin Industrial Sand Company recently approached farmers in the Town of Berry to inquire whether they would be willing to sell their land in hopes of building a sand mine, one of the controversial mines included in the legislation. All but one of the landowners denied the company’s offer.
Town Chair Anthony Varda said although the town is not inherently opposed to a sand mine, several town citizens feel a mine would negatively affect the rural area surrounding Berry.
“We need to look into sand mining more thoroughly before considering granting any company a conditional use permit,” Varda said. “Standards for quarries are already pretty well set forth by Dane County ordinances. Am I averse to this? Not necessarily. We just need to see how any such propositions hold up against our criteria.”
The practice of frac-sand mining could serve to reshape the topography of Dane County, Tom Stolp, field director for Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, said. Sand mines have recently sprung up in Wisconsin to serve the natural gas industry, which uses the sand in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking.
Hydrofracking involves the use of sand, along with water and an assortment of chemicals, to break cracks in rocks containing the valuable natural gas.
The best sand for hydrofracking is fine and composed of round quartz crystals. Coincidentally, Wisconsin is home to shallow, easily mined deposits of this very sand, Stolp said.
Sand mining is a process that has come into the spotlight only recently as the natural gas industry has risen. As a result, the demand for frac sand has jumped drastically over the last few years. The interest in a mine in Dane County is a small part of what is becoming a growing industry in central and western-central Wisconsin.
Stolp said there are worries that health risks may stem from the mining operations and there are inherent environmental concerns that are not being addressed.
“The dust produced by sand mining probably poses the biggest health risk in the process,” Stolp said. “Specifically the crystalline silicate dust; when it builds in the lungs, it can cause silicosis [a type of lung disease], and recent studies have indicated that particle buildup in the body can lead to stroke.”
Aside from health risks, Stolp said some citizens are worried that the demand for frac sand may be inhibiting the necessary research to ensure the mining process is done as safely as possible.
Stolp also said sand mining causes irreversible environmental damage to the landscape where the mine is located.
“We’re talking about upsetting thousands of acres of mostly agricultural soil,” Stolp said. “Any geologist would agree that you just can’t restore that land back to its original quality.”
