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Where do you think the fracking sand comes from?
Submitted by Sharon Wilson on Mon, 05/23/2011 - 08:54
in
Just when you thought you had learned all the dirty secrets of the shale drilling debacle, here comes something new. It took a while, but you finally figured out that the landman’s depiction of two tanks sitting in a green field with flowers all around was far from accurate. You learned about the multiple tanks, diesel fumes, noise, bright lights, constant truck traffic, noxious odors, massive pipelines, injection wells, landfarms, waste pits, frack pits, compressor stations, tank farms, water depletion, water contamination, spills, processing plants, nose bleeds, royalty checks that never came, rashes, illegal dumping and etc. But there’s more and if you live in North Texas, you should pay close attention.
The sand used for hydraulic fracturing has to be mined and that can be quite a destructive process. Sometimes, as is the case in the Ozarks, it requires mountain top removal. Other times they have to dredge the rivers, or they just dig the sand.
Here are some of the environmental concerns from frack sand mining. Thanks to Friends of the Rivers.
Water – depletion of the aquifer
Water – discharge of waste water into creeks
Risks to fish and wildlife habitat
Possible additional erosion of streambanks from non-normal wastewater discharges and higher stormwater runoffs from cleared lands into creeks
Air - dangers of silica dust causing silicosis
Truck traffic
Tourism and Economic Impacts
Risks to workers
Reclamation/Restoration after mining
Noise and light
Property Values
Frack sand mining is happening in several areas of the nation. Here is a recent article from Wisconsin: Viewpoint: Sand extraction raises environmental concerns
Last week I was contacted by a Cooke County resident who lives near the Red River. EOG (formerly Enron) plans to start mining for frack sand right on the edge of a creek about a mile above the point where the creek empties into the Red River. EOC has named it the Cooke County Sand Pit and it’s permitted by the TCEQ under permit 95412.
Cooke County residents are trying to flood TCEQ with requests for a public meeting and contested hearing, as well as a re-publication of the public notice. In typical industry manner, EOC posted the notice in a rather obscure newspaper.
Local residents’ main concern is that the high volume of water used in frack sand mining and processing will deplete nearby residential and agricultural water wells. Of course it will also pollute the creek and river and fill the air with hazardous silica dust.
Cooke County had a decent turnout (about 50 people) for one meeting. They have another one planned. If you live in Cooke County, or downwind from Cooke County, or downstream from Cooke County, this is your wakeup call. Contact Wylie at trinity.red@gmail.com to learn how to help.
P.S. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know the total of all the frack water plus all the frack sand mining water? Then maybe we could figure out how much per MCf this so-called clean energy costs us in water.
http://earthblog.org/content/where-do-you-think-fracking-sand-comes
How Sand Mines Can Endanger Water
Tue, Oct 18 2011 11:13 | Permalink
Sand plays a major role in cleaning the groundwater that makes its way to the water table, the source of drinking water, according to Everything Red Wing, which supports a frac sand moratorium in Minnesota's Goodhue County. Removing it could undermine that cleansing, leaving nitrates from farms that otherwise are cleaned out of the water. Farmers could be blamed for this pollution, even though frac sand mining would be the actual cause.
Most people look at pollution caused by mining operations--which can be significant. But they're overlooking how important sand is in the groundwater filtering process--and how removing that sand can disrupt that process, endangering the purity of drinking water. Much of southeastern Minnesota has "highly sensitive groundwater." This means that water travels relatively quickly through the various geologic layers underneath the surface of the earth--it can take hours or months for water to make the trip down to what ultimately becomes the area's source of drinking water.
That quick trip means less time for pollutants to break down before that water becomes our drinking water. The sand that mining companies are taking out of the earth is integral to cleaning the water that ultimately becomes drinking water.
Southeastern Minnesota is farmland. Surface water picks up nitrates from fertilized fields or from manure in feedlots and then starts its trip down through the earth to the water table--that's where we get our drinking water. Fortunately for southeastern Minnesoatans, nature cleans it out herself, breaking down nitrates. The cleansing process starts as the water moves through the soil, which starts breaking down the nitrates, the beginning of the cleansing process. The water makes a quick trip through limestone, then hits shale, which slows its trip and helps break nitrates. Then the water hits 30 to 100 feet of sand. In that sand are more layers of shale which again slow the flow of water and encourage the breakdown of nitrates. After traveling through this last rock layer the water is in the St Lawrence formation which is where our drinking water comes from.
Sand mines will remove much of what cleans the nitrates out of water. Sand mines remove the soil, the limestone, the first layer of shale and the filtering sandtone leaving a hole. In hydrologic terms the hole is called a "recharge zone". Water runs downhill into holes and so do nitrates. They're removing much of nature'sl filtering system of rock. What rock that is left will be further fractured by mining operations.
That means the aquifer that contains drinking water will be nearly exposed to the surface. These new groundwater recharge areas will be adjacent to farming operations.
With nature's filtering system gone, nitrates could show up in drinking water. Farmers will be the culprits. Sand mine owners could point their fingers at farmers and say, "It's them, not us."
Goodhue County is already populated and farmed. The people, the farms and industry have all grown up together here. You can't just allow a new industry on the scale of frac sand mining into the county without losing something. It is a zero sum game. The land has a limited amount to give. If you allow large amounts of it to be shipped away, most of the profits will end up in other states and the people of Goodhue County will be left with the result. To read the article in full, click here.
http://www.monroecountysandmines.org/page3/index.php?id=462167191406246190
Sand slide: The great Sand Rush of 2011
based in Chippewa County shakes up western Wisconsin
Vernon Schindler can’t believe the growth of sand mining in Chippewa County during 2011.
The first large sand mine in the county was proposed in May 2008. The site covers 185 acres in the town of Howard, where Schindler is town chairman.
Today, there are sand processing plants either in operation or planned in Chippewa Falls, the town of Bloomer and New Auburn. And eight current or proposed sand mines in Chippewa County cover 2,343 acres.
“In Chippewa County, my God, that’s a lot. Just a matter of one year’s time,” Schindler said.
The sand is used in the fracking process in extracting oil and natural gas. Portions of the sand in Chippewa County are especially desirable because of the sand’s shape.
In 2011, EOG Resources began mining in the town of Howard, and the company unveiled plans for another mine in the town of Cooks Valley.
Work either started or is planned at mines run by three other companies: Preferred Sands, Superior Silica Sands and Chippewa Sand Company.
Throughout the county, Cooks Valley has four major mining sites, Auburn has two and Howard has one.
It’s the Howard mine that’s drawing statewide attention.
Model for the state
On Dec. 1, the Wisconsin Towns Association ran a sold-out workship in the town of Wheaton about sand mines.
In the packets for everyone attending the seminar was a copy of the agreement between Howard and EOG. That pact was held up as a model for towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
“It took us 14 months to get an agreement with EOG,” Schindler said.
Among other things, the 20-year license agreement sets when EOG can mine (from Oct. 16 to April 30), permits blasting from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and has a procedure to establish fair market value for nearby properties that lost value because of the mine.
“We had quite a battle trying to get that,” Schindler said.
It’s too early to say how the mining in the town is going, he said.
“We’ve got to wait for 20-below weather and a snowstorm to see how they perform,” he said.
Because of the interest in the December sand conference, the towns association scheduled another conference for Jan. 12, 2012 at the Plaza Hotel in Eau Claire. This conference sold out on Thursday.
No silica standard set
Opponents to sand mining popped up in Chippewa County shortly after the Howard mine was proposed. The fight against the mine and the processing plant in Chippewa Falls was fierce, dominating several city council meetings and spilling over to the courts.
But in 2011, with the prospect of several sand operations in the county certain, opponents took a new twist.
Rather than fighting the sand mines, opponents focused on the air emissions of the mines and processing plants.
It was a question that was supposed to have been settled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The state agency was given a deadline of 2006 to produce a report on crystalline silica, which at four microns is invisible to the eye.
The DNR came out with a draft report in January 2011 and a final one in September.
The agency’s findings:
- While six states have set emissions standards, they haven’t shown impacts of silica on health.
- There are no generally accepted methods of monitoring particle matter four microns or less in size.
- The DNR has no crystalline silica monitoring data and would need additional financial and staff resources to conduct monitoring.
In December, three Chippewa County residents were among 10 people to petition the DNR to set a standard for crystalline silica, and to add respirable crystalline silica to the list of hazardous air contaminants.
Monitoring the air
Henry Boschen doesn’t like sand mines, and doesn’t like the way the DNR’s monitoring of air quality around sand mines and processing plants. So the town of Lafayette resident has installed air monitors to do that.
“I’ve gotten nine of them out there. They are all privately-owned,” he said.
He pushed for the New Auburn School District to buy an air quality monitor from Concerned Chippewa Citizens, the group that unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to stop the mine in Howard. The school building, which is located on the Barron County side of the village, has two sand processing plants nearby.
However, New Auburn Superintendent Brian Henning recommended that the board not accept offer in December, partly because of its connection with Concerned Chippewa Citizens.
Boschen plans to keep monitoring the air around sand mine operations. He said he personally believes the economy will sour over the next year, causing expenses in the fracking process to increase.
“I’m hoping this stuff will go away,” he said.
Staff writers Mark Gunderman and Alicia Yager contributed to this report.
Critics of energy 'fracking' raise new concern: sand
By Anna Driver
Reuters
updated 9/21/2011 4:56:22 PM HOUSTON — Fracking, the latest push in the quest to produce oil and gas, has been blamed for environmental problems ranging from flammable tap water to minor earthquakes. Now a new risk is being alleged: sand mining.
To squeeze hydrocarbons out of shale through hydraulic fracturing of the rock — the process known as fracking — producers need to pump an enormous amount of sand and other materials into the ground.
Obtaining the sand for this requires removing the top layer of earth over a sandstone deposit and using heavy equipment and large amounts of water to produce the fine grains.
According to some environmentalists and residents of affected areas, sand mining poses a threat to air and water quality.
Facing a shortage of the sand needed in fracking, oil and gas producer EOG Resources got into this mining business to secure scare supplies and bring down costs.
But the company is facing big opposition to an operation planned in North Texas' Cooke County.
"One of the big concerns is the impact on the air," said Jessie Thomas-Blate of the conservation group American Rivers. "Mining kicks up a lot of dust, and the people in the area can breathe in that dust."
If inhaled, crystalline silica, a building block in so-called frac sand, is a potential carcinogen and can cause lung and other diseases, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The mining process can also cause erosion and run-off that can fill nearby rivers with sediment, reducing oxygen levels for fish and plants, Thomas-Blate said.
EOG has promised that it will use start-of-art emissions equipment and that water for the project will come from wells drilled below the region's drinking water aquifer.
"The plant is designed to meet all standards related to air emissions as set forth by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality," the company said in a statement.
In a hydraulic fracturing job, a mix of water, sand and other chemicals is injected into shale wells at very high pressures. The process creates small fissures in the rock that allow oil and gas to flow through the well.
EOG already has one sand mine in Texas' Hood County and one in Wisconsin. It plans two more in Wisconsin.
Not everyone is happy.
"There are air quality concerns, concerns about water quality and worries about truck traffic and its effect on the roads," said Wylie Harris, a rancher whose property is less than a mile from the North Texas site where EOG intends to build.
The Cooke County mine still lacks a state air quality permit that EOG needs before it can finish the project, and county officials are asking for a hearing on the matter.
A meeting in August to discuss EOG's plans for the Cooke County sand operation drew more than 500 residents, said Stan Endres, city manager for Muenster, a town about 15 miles from the site.
"The majority of people who are concerned are the people that have property out there," Endres said. He is also concerned that trucks hauling the sand away from the mine will damage state and city roads at a time when budgets are tight.
To counter local criticism, EOG says its sand mine will bring 40 permanent jobs and tax revenue to two counties in North Texas, according to a fact sheet posted on the company's website.
The North American rush to produce crude oil and natural gas from shale formations has driven up demand and prices for frac sand.
"There's been a sand shortage in the U.S.," EOG Chief Executive Officer Mark Papa told investors this month. "And so those who have sand or have access to sand can pretty much charge what they want for that sand."
The amount of industrial sand used in hydraulic fracturing has quadrupled from 2000 to 2009, said Tom Dolley, mineral commodity specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey.
The government estimates that 6.5 million metric tons of sand were used in hydraulic fracturing in 2009 — the latest year figures were released — and expects to find that amount doubled in 2010.
Because the numbers are self-reported, Dolley said they probably understate the industry's production and use of frac sands.
"There really is a gold rush right now for this type of material," he said.
As shale drilling becomes more complex and wells keep getting bigger, the need for sand will only increase in the United States and overseas.
"There may be a shortage for a long period of time," said energy analyst Mike Breard of Hodges Capital Management in Dallas.
Mining Sand to Get More Oil
Oil and gas companies such as EOG Resources and Southwestern race to line up supplies of quartz granules used to extract oil through fracking
Oil and gas companies such as EOG Resources and Southwestern race to line up supplies of quartz granules used to extract oil through fracking
By David Wethe and Edward Klump
Since Texas oil producer EOG Resources arrived in Ken Schmitt’s Wisconsin farming community last year, the cattle breeder has marveled each time he drives by the company’s work site on his way into town. It’s not oil rigs that capture his attention. “They got one hellacious pile of sand out there,” he says.
The rolling hills surrounding Chippewa County (pop. 60,000) in the northwest part of the state sit atop a deep deposit of a type of pure quartz sand coveted by the oil industry. The sand is used as part of the water and chemical mixture injected under high pressure into wells to crack oil-infused shale rock in a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The tiny grains of sand serve as wedges to prop the cracks open so oil and natural gas can flow up the well. With prices for frack sand soaring, oil companies such as EOG have begun mining their own in places such as rural Wisconsin.
Fracking’s popularity has fueled demand for the sand. An average well in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region uses about 5 million pounds of sand—enough to cover a football field a foot deep. Sales of frack sand, also called proppant, shot up 81 percent from 2009 to 2010 and are expected to grow an additional 30 percent this year, say oil analysts. Frack sand use has increased tenfold since 2000, according to Halliburton, the world’s largest provider of hydraulic fracturing services. Brian Uhlmer, an analyst at Global Hunter Securities in Houston, estimates the industry used as much as 59 billion pounds in 2010; he says it’ll hit 75 billion this year.
Prices for fracking sand almost doubled in 2010, and now go for 4¢ to 10¢ a pound, depending on the type of sand. Some oil-services companies, which actually do the purchasing of well supplies, add a markup of up to 100 percent on top of that when they sell the sand to oil producers, which sometimes must wait months for deliveries. That’s one reason some oil and gas companies, including EOG and Southwestern Energy, both Houston-based, have decided they’re better off getting into the sand mining business themselves. EOG Chief Executive Officer Mark G. Papa said in June that mining its own sand is one of the ways the company is shaving $1 million off the cost of a typical $5 million onshore well.
Critics of fracking for years have complained about possible air pollution and water-table contamination at well sites. Now they’re raising objections to the truck traffic and clouds of dust that accompany the frack sand mines proliferating in such places as Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Texas. In Wisconsin, some landowners worry that mining will flatten their scenic hills and expose them to chemicals used to process the sand.
“Sand mines have taken over Chippewa County, along with the processing plants,” says Patricia Popple, a retired school principal who fears the mining will transform her quiet farming community of Chippewa Falls into a noisy, polluted industrial town. “There will be impacts to the air quality, water quality, to the road system, and all of the rest of things that we currently hold pretty dear.” An EOG spokeswoman says the company is committed to being a good neighbor and follows state and federal rules in operating its sand mines.
Southwestern Energy spent $30 million in 2008 to start its own sand business, including a processing plant and a mine in Arkansas, says J. Alan Stubblefield, its senior vice-president. The company expects the mine to yield about 1.3 billion pounds a year, or about 70 percent of the sand the company consumes in Arkansas’s Fayetteville Shale drilling region.
Various proppants are used in fracking. The highest-grade, and most expensive, are made of ceramic material to add strength. Cheaper raw sand is most common. White sand, found in Midwestern states, is nearly pure quartz and desired for its durability under high pressure, says Andrew R. Barron, a materials science professor at Rice University. He says brown sand, found in Texas and Arkansas, contains minerals that reduce its strength.
Most oil companies aren’t interested in starting their own sand mines. “It’s a completely different business,” says Timothy L. Dove, president of Pioneer Natural Resources in Irving, Tex. Instead, some producers are skirting service-company markups by signing multiyear contracts with sand miners to lock in supplies and prices. Regardless of who operates the mines, protests from local residents will likely grow. In Howard, Wis., Schmitt expects EOG to eventually be mining sand less than a mile from his house. “The rubber’s going to meet the road here quickly,” he says. “When EOG starts trucking, I think that’s going to be an eye-opener for everybody involved.”
The bottom line: Frack sand prices have soared 100 percent in the past year. Oil producers are opening their own sand mines to hold down costs.
Wethe is a reporter for Bloomberg News. Klump is a reporter for Bloomberg News.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/mining-sand-to-get-more-oil-07282011.html
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