Frac Sand Mining Overview

Frac sand mining has and is becoming an issue in Wisconsin. According to the Wisconsin DNR, Wisconsin has high amounts of the necessary sand needed for frac sand mining. Frac sand mining is the process in which the required sand is taken out of the ground (mining) and it is ship to the natural gas facilities that uses the sand in their natural gas operations.

According to this map from Wisconsinwatch.org most of the frac sand mining is taking place in west central Wisconsin.

Issues with frac sand mining are pollution based. How harmful is the sand that is being pulled out of the ground. Are the the airborne particulates a cause of concern? Is the extra pollution being produced by the mining facilities and transportation vehicles needed to ship a concern also? There are also environmental concerns because frac sand mining requires the destruction of habitats to get at the sand.
For this project, I am going to use GIS to help geocode the location of the mines to help further identify problems related to frac sand mining. One issue we are going to look as is the transportation infrastructure health to see if there is deterioration of roads along the frac sand mining transportation routes.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/mines/silica.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/frac-sand-mining-wisconsin-health_n_2256753.html

http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2011/07/31/sand-mining-surges-in-wisconsin/