Exercise 4 - Sand Mining for Hydraulic Fracturing

Introduction

Sand mining is a booming industry in Wisconsin today, and this is because of the increase in Hydraulic Fracturing or fracking that is going on across the country. Wisconsin has some of the best sand in the country and it is vital in the fracking technique. This post is an introduction to the project on sand mining we are doing in this GIS class and will continue throughout the semester.

What is fracking?

Fracking is the mining of natural gas using a hydraulically pressurized liquid full of water, sand, and many other chemicals and fracturing the natural gas contain rocks. This is practiced in areas that have an abundance of shale which is the most common location for natural gas to be stored naturally. The importance of sand mining in Wisconsin is evident in the vital inclusion of sand in the mixture that is used to fracture this shale. Even though the sand mining that is vital to the fracking process is from Wisconsin, fracking does not take place in Wisconsin even though there are some future potential candidates in the northern parts of the state. Rather, the states on the eastern and western coasts as well as southwestern U.S. have the best locations for fracking due to shale formations in these areas.

Where in Wisconsin is the sand mined?

There has been mining of sand in Wisconsin all the way back to the 19th century due the states abundance of the material. Most of the western part of the state is sandstone and the sand here is perfect for fracking because the quartz crystals that make up Wisconsin sand are the correct size and shape needed for fracking. The sandstone reaches from the northern counties of Washburn and Burnett all the way to the southern border of Illinois. The figure below shows the locations of sand mines in Wisconsin mostly focused in the western and central parts of the state. The university here in Eau Claire sits right in the middle of thickest sandstone deposit part of the state.

(fig 1)

Issues with fracking and sand mining

This topic of sand mining and especially fracking are very hot debate issues in the news today. There are issues with what effects there are on the environment when fracking is practiced in the area. Fracking has been related to water contamination, landslides, and other environmental health and safety risks. An article from the Washington Post this past month discussed a recent study that found fracking to increase reports in health problems. The report quotes local farmers near a fracking operation in Arkansas who said they had health problems related to the water they drank believing it to be contaminated by the local fracking. Meanwhile, the companies say that there is no correlation between fracking and public health concern, citing these studies as strictly opinion based polls. However, environmental public health researchers have found there to be some worry but not to make any connections until further research has been done.

How GIS will be used in this project

GIS is an important tool in analyzing spatial data and this can help us get a overview and predict patterns in the data. We can use GIS to map out current sand mines, transportation routes for moving the sand, and future potential mine locations.

Sources 

Robertson JM. 2012. Frac Sand Factsheet. Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey.

Paquette D. 2014. Live near fracking? You are more likely to report health problems, new study says. The Washington Post.

Wisconsin DNR. Industrial Sand Mining.

Wisconsin DNR. Silica Sand Mining