County Committee Mulls Frac Sand
Saturday, January 7th, 2012 -- 7:54 AM
(Neillsville, Wis.)Clark County might have a good deal of coveted ?frac sand,? but a lot of it might be in the Clark County Forest.Convening the Mining Committee for the first time in several years Friday, chairman David Holtzhausen said he wanted an informal ?round table? discussion about the potential pros and cons of the booming industry, but it quickly became evident no one really knows how much pure silica sand is in the county, where it?s located or how viable the long term market is for the product.
Board member Fred Schindler, whose company operates a sand mine in the Town of York, warned colleagues industry insiders have told him to expect a ?two-year lull? as all the mines popping up saturate the market.
"(This) looks easy and intriguing on the outside, but there's quite a bit to it," Schindler cautioned. "(Clark County) is right on the edge. You get on the other side of Marshfield and it pretty much dies out."
Other concerns were raised about increasing questions over the environmental and health affects of the hydro-fracturing process, which some watchdogs don?t believe has been proved safe.
Land Conservationist Matt Zoschke wondered, if Clark County had a lot of this material, why the private sector hadn't jumped on it, as they have in neighboring counties. "Don't you think, when the time is right, the private sector will contact us?" he asked, questioning if the county should go looking for sand, or set up an "orderly process" for prospectors that ensured the county wouldn't be kept in the dark about their findings.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Steve Kunze told the committee some private firms had contacted his office and had apparently done testing in the area, but they have no responsibility to report their findings.
TRANSPORTATION OF SAND KEY
Schindler explained that transporting the sand a great distance to processing plants chips away at the profit margin and could be one reason the "boom" hadn't hit here.
Lack of rail is the big thing holding the county back, said Hatfield supervisor Charles Harwick, who noted Barron County had been negotiating with 15 companies for years, but no mines have opened due to the lack of a rail spur.
Highway Commissioner Randy Anderson said the county roads around the most promising locations for large scale sand mining couldn't handle increased truck traffic. "The 'Is' and 'Ms' aren't built to all season standards or to withstand that kind of traffic," he said, referring to two roads near potential silica deposits.
But, "the technology exists" to test the roads, and companies have been willing to cover the costs of bringing roads up to standards, he noted.
WHAT'S NEXT?
"What do we have? Everything else is window dressing," surmised Kunze.
While boring and other tests need to be done, samples from septic excavations seem to show a lot of sand in the western part of the county, which is nearly all governed by County Forest Law. Any land removed from the forest would have to be replaced with county-owned land elsewhere. The process could take a year or more.
"Is the public going to support this? Putting a sand mine in the County Forest?" asked Anderson.
The group took no action Friday, but plan to do more research before another meeting next month.
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