Open pit mining is a very controversial topic today in Wisconsin. This mining is called Sand frac mining and it is the process of digging for the fine silica sand that is used as a proppant to hold open cracks in the rock to extract oil and natural gas. Wisconsins sand is very high quality and not found anywhere else thanks to the glacier deposits from the Cambrian age over 500 million years ago. The frac sand mining has been especially heavy in the northern parts of Wisconsin especially in Barron and Chippewa County. This has caused a heated debate about the environmental damages that could result from heavy mining, including air pollution, water pollution and land pollution.

This particular issue has affected my family personally, We owned property that was located next to a parcel that was high in silica sand. A mining company that digs for silica sand bought the land next to us and systematically bought all the remaining land around our property until we were forced to sell before the value plummeted. Our family land became worthless as hunting land so we sold it to the company. You can see the frac mine that they built on my family’s old land with these long/lat coordinates

Latitude 45°22'11.57"N Longitude 92° 1'7.88"W

Silica sand is very pure and high quality sand that naturally occurs in Wisconsin, it is also a vital component in the process of hydro fracking.  Hydro fracking is the drilling process of digging a well under the ground and cracking the hard rock layer to expose natural gas and oil. Water, Chemicals and frac sand are then continuously pumped into the crack at high pressures in order to keep the crack open and allow the oil and natural gas to flow out easily.

The methods that are used to dig for frac sand involve removal and excavation techniques of the top soil, digging below ground water lines, and blasting to produce shot rock which is then crushed to extract silica sand. The sand is then shipped to processing plants where it undergoes washing, drying, screening and a resin coat to allow the sand to be water retardant and flow as a slurry. It is then transported to its final destination, transporting frac sand in Wisconsin is preferably done by train instead of trucks so that road deterioration is less of an issue.

The issues associated with Frac Sand mining are about the air pollution and water table pollution. Hazardous air pollutions are known to occur from sand mining and processing operations but the silica sand itself is safe, the methods that are used to dig for the sand however is liable to release elements into the air that can be hazardous to people’s health. Sand Mining can also be hazardous to the water tables since any site located near a river, stream, lake or wetland may come into contact with site products. The products of sand frac mining may also make its way into drinking water.

We will be using GIS to explore some of these issues with frac sand mining including mapping the railway tracks that are delivering sand to refinery’s and processing plants and also the sand frac mines themselves. With this information we can create topology layers and estimate the amount of run off that we can expect based on the amount of rainfall and the elevation. We can also create buffers around plants based on expected pollution and the amount that is allowed based on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.