Des Moines Register:
The mining is so controversial, residents of Bridgeport, Wis., just
across the Mississippi River from Iowa, on Wednesday sued to block a
local mine run by Iowa-based Pattison Sand Co....
There is no fracking for oil or gas in Iowa, but the state is home to
one of the nation’s largest deposits of silica sand used in fracking.
The sand is in high demand, so mining companies have scouted the Midwest
for new spots to dig.
Environmentalists fear water pollution, and
neighbors of the mines in Minnesota have complained of dust, noise and
traffic. The Wisconsin lawsuit contends the county violated zoning
ordinances by ignoring possible negative effects of the project, the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Pattison officials declined to
comment because they had not reviewed the lawsuit.
Allamakee and
Winneshiek counties in Iowa each passed an 18-month moratorium on frack
sand mining permits, Allamakee in February and Winneshiek in June.
Residents had filled school auditoriums earlier this year for blistering
debates over the growing industry. Fracking has fed a boom in natural
gas extraction in North Dakota and other parts of the country.
I guess that of all the things to get fired up about with fracking, mining sand seems like one of the more minor issues. I'd say water pollution from the fracking, and from the stoarge and disposal of wastewater, and small earthquakes resulting from injection wells are more disconcerting.
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