2019-05-01_Discover

NOT WITHOUT ISSUES

Any sort of extraction — from mining to fracking

— affects the environment. Companies that oper-

ate sand mines in Wisconsin are required to reclaim

the land they’ve dug up. At one of these mines, about

400 acres are actively being mined, and between 10

and 40 acres are reclaimed each year. This usually

involves returning the sand that cannot be sold along

with the clay, shale and topsoil that had to be removed

to get to the sand, and then planting grasses and other

native flora.

In neighboring Minnesota, which has plenty of

high-quality sand as well, there has been far less sand

mining partly due to concerns about the impact of

mining on the landscape and the environment, says

Johanna Rupprecht, a policy organizer with the Land

Stewardship Project. That non-profit organization

has worked with towns and counties in Minnesota to

pass moratoriums and outright bans on sand mining.

For many people, it’s not just air and water quality

worries, “it’s just about the inherent value of the land,

that it is not right to do this to our hills and bluffs and

farmland for the profits of the oil and gas industry,”

says Rupprecht.

Sand mining can also pose a human health risk in

the form of silicosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling

tiny, airborne silica particles. Strict safety protocols

are followed any time mine workers are around dry

sand, says Nick Bartol, a public relations manager at

Badger Mining Corp., which operates three mines

in Wisconsin. But public health researchers at the

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire have found

some levels of airborne particulate matter — which

can include silica dust — around sand mines that

are higher than EPA standards. Inhalation of fine

particulate matter has been strongly linked to both

cardiovascular and lung problems.

Sarah Geers, an attorney with the non-profit

Midwest Environmental Advocates, says there hasn’t

been enough research on potential public health

impacts. “We don’t know for sure if that’s an issue

because we just don’t have testing for it,” she says of

the risk of silicosis to people living near sand mines.

RETURN TO THE EARTH

Back in the monochromatic world of the mine, the

large dump trucks bring sand to the processing facili-

ties on site. It still requires a good deal of processing

before it’s ready to be used in fracking: It has to be

cleaned, sorted by grain size, dried and then shipped

out, usually by rail.

The sand isn’t above ground for long before the

strong little spheres arrive at their final resting place,

deep underground in places like Pennsylvania, North

Dakota, Texas and Canada. There’s a certain, strange

irony to it: digging up sand that has lain dormant for

hundreds of millions of years, only to send it back

into the earth among rocks that are nearly as old. D

Geoffrey Giller is a science writer and photographer who

covers wildlife, conservation and the environment.

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MAY 2019. DISCOVER 25

“We don’t

know for

sure if

[silicosis] is

an issue

because we

just don’t

have testing

for it.”

— Sarah Geers,

attorney for Midwest

Environmental

Advocates

This map (left) shows

the range of white

sands in the U.S.

These sands are

harvested in major

mining operations

and then shipped off

for use in hydraulic

fracturing, or fracking,

operations elsewhere.

Pure quartz sand

(below) sits in huge

heaps at a Wisconsin

sand mine.

northern

white sands

southern

white sands

Source: U.S. Geological Survey