Fracking (which Hillary has promoted worldwide) Destroys Rural America & Health
The Sand Mines That Ruin Farmland
By NANCY C. LOEBMAY 23, 2016
Chicago — WHILE the shale gas industry has been depressed in recent years by low oil and gas prices, analysts are predicting that it will soon rebound. Many of the environmental hazards of the gas extraction process, called hydraulic fracturing or fracking, are by now familiar: contaminated drinking water, oil spills and methane gas leaks, exploding rail cars and earthquakes.
A less well-known effect is the destruction of large areas of Midwestern farmland resulting from one of fracking’s key ingredients: sand.
Fracking involves pumping vast quantities of water and chemicals into rock formations under high pressure, but the mix injected into wells also includes huge amounts of “frac sand.” The sand is used to keep the fissures in the rock open — acting as what drilling engineers call a “proppant” — so that the locked-in oil and gas can escape.
Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota are home to some of the richest agricultural land anywhere in the world. But this fertile, naturally irrigated farmland sits atop another resource that has become more highly prized: a deposit of fine silica sand known as St. Peter sandstone. This particular sand is valued by the fracking industry for its high silica content, round grains, uniform grain size and strength. These qualities enable the St. Peter sand to withstand the intensity of fracking, and improve the efficiency of drilling operations.
In the Upper Midwest, this sandstone deposit lies just below the surface. It runs wide but not deep. This makes the sand easy to reach, but it also means that to extract large quantities, mines have to be dug across hundreds of acres.
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But the effects cannot be hidden indefinitely. These mines are destroying rural communities along with the farmland. Homesteads and small towns are being battered by mine blasting, hundreds of diesel trucks speed down rural roads dropping sand along the way, stadium lighting is so bright it blots out the night sky, and 24-hour operations go on within a few hundred feet of homes and farms. As a result, some farmers are selling and moving away, while for those determined to stay, life is changed forever.
Quality of life is not their only concern. Silica is a human carcinogen and also causes lung disease, including silicosis. Because of its dangers, silica is heavily regulated in the workplace, but there are generally no regulations for silica blown around from the sand-mining operations. These mines also use millions of gallons of groundwater every day. Local wells are running dry, and the long-term availability of water for homes and ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/opinion/the-sand-mines-that-ruin-farmland.html?_r=0
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