REPORT: RAPIDLY EXPANDING FRAC SAND MINING IS HIDDEN DANGER OF FRACKING BOOM IN U.S.
Major Harms Already Seen to Human Health, Water Quality and Property Values in WI and MN; Rapid Growth of Fracking Could Lead to Similar Mining in IL, ME, MA, MI, MO, NY, NC, SC, PA, TN, VT and VA.
BOSTON, MA.///September 25, 2014///Frac sand mining – the extraction of the fine-particle sand needed for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) of wells — is expanding rapidly in the United States and poses a little-understood threat to human health, the environment, and local economies, according to a major report issued today by the Civil Society Institute’s Boston Action Research (BAR) and released in cooperation with Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA).
According to the new BAR report, “Communities At Risk: Frac Sand Mining in the Upper Midwest” available online at www.bit.ly/fracsandmining, a significant portion of frac sand mining in the U.S. is concentrated today in Wisconsin and Minnesota, which have a total of 164 active frac sand facilities, and another 20 that have been proposed. Wisconsin alone is on track to extract 50 million tons of frac sand a year – the equivalent of 9,000 semi-truck loads a day and enough to fill the nation’s second tallest building, the former Sear Towers in Chicago, 21 times a year.
Drilling companies are now finding that the use of more frac sand per well increases shale gas and oil yields. As a result, analysts estimate that fracking companies will require 95 billion pounds of frac sand this year, an increase of almost 30 percent from 2013 and 50 percent above initial forecasts. Given the explosive growth in fracking nationwide, extraction could spread to several other states with untapped or largely untapped frac sand deposits, including Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. (See the map here: www.bit.ly/fracsandmap. For a detailed map-based look at the impact of frac sand mining, see the new EWG report at http://www.ewg.org/research/danger-in-the-air.) … see below for rest of news release …
Read the 09.25.14 news release.
Read the 09.25.14 BAR report on frac sand mining.
See the map of tapped and untapped frac sand mines in the U.S.
Read the EWG frac sand mining report.
Statement of report co-author Grant Smith.
Statement of Heather White, executive director, Environmental Working Group.
Statement of Kimberlee Wright, executive director, Midwest Environmental Advocates.
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