Frac sand: A Missouri connection to fracking?

by tony

Frac sand is an issue I’m pursuing. When I first returned to Missouri in mid-January and had some free time before masters classes started up, I (finally) started reading through ProPublica’s work on fracking. I was already pretty familiar with the issue from other coverage, but still learned tons. Before I was halfway through the series of articles, I started looking for Missouri connections, since I’m based in mid-Mo and most often write for the Columbia Missourian, which (rightly so) focuses on issues with local and state-wide relevance. I was pretty certain there wasn’t much in the way of fracking in Missouri, but nonetheless I typed “fracking Missouri” into Google just to see what I’d find.

I came across this newsletter from Ozarks Water Watch, which raises the issue of “frac sand” mining in Missouri. Frac sand is a particular type of sand used in fracking. To oversimplify the process, when opening up the ground to drill, you send “frac sand’ down the chute into the rock to keep it open. A particular kind of sand is needed, though, a perfectly round grain of sand that rolls down the chute (I believe there are other specifications to. This type of sand is found in abundance in the St. Peter Sandstone, which horseshoes its way through the midwest, including parts of Missouri, which could soon be home to more frac sand mining (there is some, already, I hear). According to the newsletter:

Speculators are now buying up Missouri land containing sandstone formations. The latest 20 acre purchase in Missouri netted the land owner 10 times the normal price per acre.

So I called Dave Casaletto, who wrote the newsletter, for a little more info. The issue came up in an off-the-cuff conversation before a state Department of Natural Resources meeting. Casaletto said the land purchase in question was near Columbia, but I don’t know for sure and I haven’t found any more details on it. Frac sand mining in and of itself is not nearly as controversial as fracking, nor are its potential environmental impacts as significant. But some states now face conflicts because they have no regulations in place for frac sand mining (Missouri, as far as I can tell, has no specific regulations in place for frac sand). Some areas have called for moratoriums on frac sand mining, like Houston County in Minnesota, where the issues related to frac sand mining include “road damage, water table depletion, air and water quality, and reclamation.”

What really interests me is whether this is a new industry coming to Missouri, and if so what the implications are of that, particularly the connection to such a controversial (yet growing) trend. I did a clip search on frac sand mining and found mostly things from up north in Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, a plan aslo developed to begin frac sand mining at Starved Rock in Illinois, which has some people upset. There was even a Facebook group/event opposing it.

But it is going to happen, and the practice will continue to spread. Because of a boom in fracking, a boom in frac sand mining in the midwest has followed suit, as this article from the Associated Press explains.

My next steps were finding out whether this boom has reached Missouri, whether it will soon, and what that means. Would it create jobs? Boost the state economy? Harm the environment? What exactly is this sand and why is it found only in the Midwest, where fracking isn’t happening as much (though cursory readings show there is some in Kansas and Arkansas, which border Missouri)? Sand is not rare, as far as I know, so why ship it from the Midwest? Does Missouri become a critical player in fracking if it can produce this needed sand? Or is it just another place where the material can come from?

I’ll be reaching out to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey and local sand mining companies. I also have a hunch that someone at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla, Mo., might have some information on this topic. I’ll also be contacting an editor I’ve previously worked with to see if there’s any interest in this topic.