Saturday, July 28, 2012

Nice Human Interest Story From Wisconsin: Fracking Sand

Link here to Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley, sent in by a reader. Thank you.

The headline: no slowdown yet for sand mining industry in west-central Wisconsin.

The story includes a great map of the sand mines.
A new industry continues to rise — quite literally — from the ground in west-central Wisconsin.
Officials from 12 regional counties reported the area now has a total of 52 silica sand mines that are either operating or approved.
That's up 136 percent from 22 just a year ago and shows just how fast the sand storm is sweeping across west-central Wisconsin, ...
Go to link for rest of story.

There are a number of interesting data points at the link. This caught my interest: earlier, officials thought that supply/demand for fracking sand was narrowing in Wisconsin, but lately, they've not seen that to be true. Applications for additional sand mining operations continue to come in.