Sand Mining in Western Wisconsin

Introduction:
Fracking has been used for extracting oil and gas in the United States for past 75 years.  Fracking is short for the term hydraulic fracturing.  Fracking is the process of creating fractures in the ground by injecting a combination of liquid and sand mixtures into the earth at a very high pressure.  These cracks allow for easier extraction of oil and gas.  The sand used for fracking is a quartz sand with a very specific grain size and shape.  Western and  central Wisconsin is home to some of the very best sand for this process.  The geologic structure of western and central Wisconsin allows for the sand to be almost perfect size and structure for fracking.  Frac sand is then taken to a refinery that washes, sorts for uniformity, and dries it out.  The send is then ready to use for fracking all over the county.

The new development of horizontal drilling for natural gas in the U.S. has created a mad rush to get as much frac sand as possible. 

Problem:

The mad rush for frac sand has created issues in the local area. With low amount of regulation people have been selling their land and mines have been put up all over the state.  This created economic booms in the surrounding areas.  The problem is that frac sand mining has slowed down over the recent years and employment and economies have fallen because of the lack of money going into these areas. There is also the issue of pollutants that are emitted during the process of mining and refining the sand.  There are permits and regulations that need to be obtained from the state to continue operations.  Since there are environmental concerns around frac sand mining, the state and DNR are hesitant to give these permissions.  

Roles of GIS:

During this course I will be utilizing my skills in GIS to figure out ways to solve some problems in the frac sand business.  I will be using my skills to determine ways that frac sand mining is effecting the environment and ways that can be stopped.  Importing data into GIS platforms will allow for data manipulation, database creation, and a variety of other data implementation to allow for successful analysis. 

Sources:

WDNR. 2012. Silica sand mining in Wisconsin. Retrieved February 22, 2016.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Mines/documents/SilicaSandMiningFinal.pdf

USGS. (2012). Frac sand in WI. Retrieved February 22, 2016.

http://wcwrpc.org/frac-sand-factsheet.pdf

King, P. (2015, June 3). Wisconsin towns worry frac sand boom will dry up. EnergyWire. Retrieved February 22, 2016.

http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/06/03/wisconsin-towns-worry-frac-sand-boom-will-dry-up/