Start here — Links and references

UPDATE:  Start here

Click HERE for the most comprehensive page of links — at the West Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission

Click HERE for a great map of mines, and HERE for photo resource — from FracTracker

What is Frac Sand Mining?

Click HERE for the recent DNR report on Frac Sand Mining in Wisconsin.
Click HERE for an article in USA Today on frac sand mining in the Midwest.
Click HERE for a report by MPR on frac sand mining in southern Minnesota.
Click HERE for an article in the Mpls StarTribune on frac sand mining.

What are the issues that the mining presents?

Click HERE for the report on health issues related to silica sand from the Buffalo County Health Department, issued August 24, 2012. The file is 1.1 mb in size. It requires Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 9.0 or higher.
Click HERE for a link to a list of Frac Sand Mining issues by Mike O’Connor.
Click HERE for a link to maps illustrating the truck traffic issues in Buffalo County – by Mike O’Connor.
Click HERE for a link to a fact sheet developed by Steve Deller, UW Cooperative Extension, about research on the impacts of frac sand mining on communities.
Click HERE to see a video by Northland Adventures on the impacts of frac sand mining on communities, health, and property values.

Why industrial frac sand mining is different than the small agricultural gravel/sand mines we’ve had for years

Click HERE for a PDF of an overview story in Big River Magazine last July – what is frac sand, and what are some of the problems with mining it?

Click HERE for a video of a presentation about frac sand mining at Monore County’s “Exploring Regional Economic Opportunities conference on Feb 23, 2012 in Warrens, WI.

What can be done to address these issues, and make this a win/win situation?

This is what all of us are trying to figure out.  Click HERE to see the page on this web site devoted to ideas on how to make this work.  Check it out, and contribute your own ideas – we need to work together to come up with good solutions.

Is “Fracking” (the extraction technique that relies on frac sand from this region) really going to be viable in the long-term, or are we betting our County’s future on a dead-end customer that may bust in a few years?

It’s always a good idea to look beyond the local issue and understand where the demand for driftless-area sand is coming from because it’s that demand that’s driving the boom.  But how likely is that demand to continue?

Viability of the “Fracking” market — Click HERE for a 1-hour YouTube video of well-researched talk by Deborah Rogers called “”Shale Promises, or Shale Spin? The Economics Behind Fracking”

Is “Fracking” really going to get us to energy independence? — Click HERE for an article that starts by saying “A deluge of recent articles have asserted that the U.S. is on its way to energy independence thanks to the miracle of shale oil, or “tight oil.” (Shale oil is actual crude oil produced from tight shale formations like the Bakken. Tight oil is a broader term including shale oil and natural gas liquids produced from shale gas plays. Horizontal drilling and “fracking” are used in both kinds of shale production.) None of them, however, have demonstrated how we would get there.”

Is this another example of big business hijacking “the best darn government money can buy”?  — Click HERE for Randy Schenkat’s article in the Winona Daily news in which he says “Multinational oil companies have no national loyalties. While we might be dreaming of energy independence, they’re already scheming to sell our energy to China for five times the current domestic pegged rate — creating a shortage here and escalating prices after we’ve made the switch. That doesn’t seem very pro-American to me and seems we’re on our way to another greed-driven economic debacle.”

The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom — Click HERE for the article in Rolling Stone

Frac sand prices fell by 18% in Q2 — Click HERE for a story that shows the impact on prices as new mines come on line and demand drops.

The coming Tsunami of Frac Sand supply — Click HERE for an article that shows the growing oversupply of frac sand in the region.

Related sites and organizations

This page has been simplified so it can be more of a beginning for learning about frac sand mining.  To see the Learn More page, where there are many more links to information, click HERE.