DS Frac Sand Mine, Boomer, Wisconsin
Presentation to Chippewa County’s Land Conservation & Forestry Department monthly meeting on January 20, 2016
My name is Johnne Smalley. I own and pay taxes on land in Wheaton Township in Chippewa County, Wisconsin. I am here today to find out what Chippewa County envisions for its future.
I have read Chippewa County’s Comprehensive Plan, but I don’t see the county following it. Page 173, Section 6.4 states:
Goal 1 – Maintain the physical condition, biodiversity, ecology, and environmental functions of the landscape, including its capacity for flood storage, groundwater recharge, water filtration, plant growth, ecological diversity, wildlife habitat, and carbon sequestration.
Goal 2 – Maintain the capacity of the land to support productive forests and agricultural working lands to sustain food, fiber, and renewable energy production.
How many acres of land have been removed from productive forests and agricultural working lands to support frac sand mines owned by and operated for the financial benefit of people that are not from our area, often not even from our state, and sometimes, not even from our country?
How have all these frac sand mines maintained the physical condition, biodiversity, ecology, and environmental functions of the landscape, including its capacity for flood storage, groundwater recharge, water filtration, plant growth, ecological diversity, wildlife habitat, and carbon sequestration?
What I’m seeing is a bunch of eyesores scarring our land, devastation of forested hillsides, businesses that were dependent on tourist trade closing, increased costs for agricultural businesses dependent on rail transport of fertilizers into the area and corn out of the area, decreased wildlife habitat resulting in increased crop destruction as the wildlife relocate into adjacent cropland, and tons of colloidal clay from their ponds washing into our trout streams and ruining the trout habitat. There are toxic levels of silica 2.5 dust in the air which affect our health and probably animal health. In other localities near frac sand facilities, veterinarians have noticed increased fertility problems including a significant lower conception rate and higher rate of stillborn and weak calves. There have been similar reports by farmers near mine sites in Chippewa County. Coincidence?
I’m also seeing a tremendous increase in the number of homes for sale around these sites and at greatly reduced prices. Some people have given up and just walked away from their home to move elsewhere.
Now I am seeing the approval of another reclamation permit for a 1300+ acre frac sand mine, processing plant, and trans-load station. This permit has been granted to a company with a known history of disregarding DNR regulations that protect our groundwater from contamination.
I have also read a good bit of The Chippewa County Code of Ordinances.
The Chippewa County Code of Ordinances Chapter 30, Sec. 106 lines 741-744 states:
“Sec. 30-106. Permit denial. An application for a nonmetallic mining reclamation permit shall be denied if any of the factors specified in Wis. Admin. Code NR § 135.22 exist.
NR 135.22 Denial of application for reclamation permit, clearly states, “An application to issue a nonmetallic mining reclamation permit shall be denied if
(c) 1. The applicant, or its agent, principal or predecessor has, during the course of nonmetallic mining in Wisconsin within 10 years of the permit application or modification request being considered shown a pattern of serious violations of this chapter or of federal, state or local environmental laws related to nonmetallic mining reclamation.”
Northern Sands, LLC has more than 20 DNR violations of inappropriate exploratory borehole abandonments in Chippewa County. Leaving holes open can create a direct conduit for entry of contaminants to waters of the state and is a serious violation of ch. 281, Wisconsin Statutes and ch. NR812, Wis. Adm. Code. (Just ask anyone who has to drink water from an aquifer that has had liquid manure dumped down a hole into it).
The proposed post−mining land use given in 3.0 of the Howard Township Properties Nonmetallic Mine Reclamation Plan “include a combination of commercial and passive recreational uses….Approximately eighty-five percent of the site will be reclaimed as prairie grasslands: approximately fifteen percent of the area will be reclaimed as woodland.” The Chippewa County Land Conservation and Forest Management staff can explain better than I can that prairie grasslands are not the same as productive agricultural cropland that sustain food, fiber, and renewable energy production. (See goal 2 from Chippewa County’s Comprehensive Plan as quoted above.)
NR 135 also states, “The proposed post−mining land use shall be consistent with local land use plans.” In addition, State law Sec.66.1001. Wis. Stats. requires that local land use-related decisions be consistent with the goals and objectives of that community’s comprehensive plan. I am not seeing how taking more and more productive cropland and forest away to return it to native prairie “maintains the capacity of the land to support productive forests and agricultural working lands to sustain food, fiber, and renewable energy production”.
I would also like to question why Chippewa County is not requiring an independent expert or consultant to do the monitoring and reporting of this mine site with reimbursement costs paid back to the county by Northern Sands. This permit allows Northern Sands to do their own checking and reporting. Their history has shown how well they have done that in the past. On multiple occasions, their actions and reports have been fabricated and falsely reported to both the Howard Town Board and the Wisconsin DNR. Having county personnel or even state personnel checking to make sure the monitoring and reporting is being done accurately is just adding to the taxpayers’ burden. With Northern Sands history, they will need close oversight and this cost should fall back onto Northern Sands—not the taxpayers.
An agency-designated consultant with recognized experience in the areas of financial assurance and reclamation should also be required to evaluate any financial assurance given by Northern Sands with the costs incurred paid by Northern Sands. Reclamation Surety Bonds for other mining endeavors have proved inadequate in the past. Repeatedly, the Surety Bonds have been for inadequate amounts. They may cover the cost of reclamation as outlined, but usually fail to cover any problems that may occur—especially the cost of re-working an area where reclamation failed and the cost of pollution clean-up. Also, there is a history of Surety Bond issuers failing when it comes time for the actual reclamation. In some instances there has been a close tie between the surety bond company and the mine owner.
In conclusion, I would like to repeat my question of how the Chippewa County envisions its future and how its actions in permitting these frac sand mines support this vision.
Thank you. Johnne Smalley, Wheaton Township, Chippewa County, Wisconson
Source: Frac Sand Sentinel, Special Issue, January 20, 2016
Address: Save The Hills Alliance, 12568 44th Avenue, Chippewa Falls, WI 54729
Extensive background information, photographs and updates are posted by the Concerned Chippewa Citizens and by the Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy of New York State.
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Communities At Risk: Frac Sand Mining in the Upper Midwest
A Report by the Boston Action Research — A project of the Civil Society Institute
Written by Emily Chapman, Lyle Hopkins, Alex Jasset, Seth Sheldon, Grant Smith of Boston Action Research, 1 Bridge St., Suite 200, Newton, MA 02458
Date: September 25, 2014, http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org
Executive Summary
The rapid expansion in the United States of oil and shale gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), has a hidden side filled with problems: the mining of the special sand – known as “frac sand,” for short — that is essential to fracking a drilled well. The specific type of sand in question is now mined most heavily in Wisconsin and Minnesota. However, as the demands of fracking grow it is possible that mining will expand to sand deposits in at least 12 other states.
Key concerns about frac sand mining include the following:
Water issues. Individual mining operations withdraw between 420 thousand and 2 million gallons per day. The volume of water used is significant, and added chemicals to process the sand compound water related problems with sand mining. Polyacrylamide, a flocculent, that encourages clumping of particles to remove impurities from the sand is used at mining and processing operations. It contains traces of acrylamide and can break down into acrylamide, a neurotoxin and known carcinogen, and can enter groundwater or surface water from wastewater ponds at mining operations or from piles of processed sand ready to be transported. There is also increasing concern with acid mine runoff from operating and reclaimed frac sand mines.
Air quality issues. Silica dust is of great concern to people living near frac sand operations. The smallest particles of dust (2.5 microns, a fraction of the width of a human hair) cause the greatest damage to the lungs. This is due to the fact that smaller particles can evade the body’s natural defense mechanisms and penetrate deeper into the lungs, and even into the bloodstream. Crystalline silica dust, generally around 4 microns in diameter or less, is also especially harmful. Depending on the amount and duration of exposure, silica dust can cause silicosis of the lungs, a well-known hazard in mining, and at natural gas and oil drill sites due to the use of sand in fracking operations.
Financial issues. Frac sand mining causes many economic harms, including a potential loss of nearby real estate values of up to 25 percent; and decreased lifespan for roads and other infrastructure, which carry a substantial replacement cost. Even though Minnesota state law allows counties to levy a 15-cent per ton aggregate extraction tax to help offset the costs of road repair, many counties choose not to. Additionally, the Minnesota Local Research Board found that 22 cents per ton-mile would be a more accurate amount to cover the costs.
Perhaps the best response to the rapid expansion of shale gas extraction is to take a step back and view the entire shale gas fuel cycle more holistically. The questions, if properly posed, can assist us in defining the issues, challenges, and consequences of the shale gas fuel cycle. They will also help answer whether or not the shale gas revolution is of benefit to all of us or just some of us, and determine the long-term viability of the shale-gas economy. In pursuing this exercise, the scope of questions should not remain at some national or geopolitical strategic level. Rather, they should also address the consequences of the shale gas fuel cycle for people at the local level including the consequences for their property, their businesses, their cultural values and way of life, their health, their access to adequate supplies of clean water, the impact on local infrastructure, as well as the sustainability of their community’s economy in the near- and long- term. Of course, such questions should have been posed long ago. Powerful economic forces are churning ahead without pause or consideration of the implications of shale gas extraction for our country and our citizens.
Source: http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/092514%20csi%20bar%20frac%20sand%20mining%20report%20final2%20-%20embargoed.pdf
See the photos at: http://www.ccc-wis.com