WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.002 cc >> Tom Zinnen: Welcome, 00:02.002 --> 00:04.037 everyone, to Wednesday Nite at the Lab. 00:04.037 --> 00:06.072 My name is Tom Zinnen. I work here at the Biotechnology 00:06.072 --> 00:08.174 Center at UW-Madison. I also work for UW Extension 00:08.174 --> 00:10.877 Cooperative Extension, and on behalf of those organizations 00:10.877 --> 00:13.279 and our sponsors, Wisconsin Public Television, 00:13.279 --> 00:16.750 Wisconsin Alumni Association, the UW Madison Science Alliance 00:16.750 --> 00:19.285 and the PLATO group, thanks for coming to Wednesday Nite 00:19.285 --> 00:21.721 at the Lab. We do this every Wednesday 00:21.721 --> 00:25.225 night, 50 times a year. Tonight I'm delighted to be able 00:25.225 --> 00:28.061 to introduce to you, Bruce Brown who is a colleague of mine who 00:28.061 --> 00:30.363 also works for the cooperative extension. 00:30.363 --> 00:32.365 He works for the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History 00:32.365 --> 00:35.935 Survey here in town. He gets to work on one of the 00:35.935 --> 00:39.172 more interesting and soon to be, well, I think it's fair to say 00:39.172 --> 00:42.609 it's rather controversial, the whole issue of frac sands here 00:42.609 --> 00:47.013 in Wisconsin. So please join me in welcoming 00:47.013 --> 00:49.582 Bruce Brown to Wednesday Nite at the Lab. 00:49.582 --> 00:51.117 [APPLAUSE] 00:55.522 --> 00:57.924 >> Bruce Brown: Thank you very much. 00:57.924 --> 01:00.260 I'm quite pleased to see the size of the crowd we've got 01:00.260 --> 01:02.495 tonight. Apparently this is an issue that 01:02.495 --> 01:04.731 has caught a few people's attention. 01:04.731 --> 01:07.000 I was rather fearing for a while that a talk about sand was about 01:07.000 --> 01:10.570 the last thing anybody was going to want to hear. 01:10.570 --> 01:14.274 But if you have at least paid any attention to the newspapers 01:14.274 --> 01:17.477 or listened to any of the media, you can't help but have heard 01:17.477 --> 01:20.980 about various controversy about hydrofracking and the production 01:20.980 --> 01:25.418 of oil and natural gas and about the fact that we've really 01:25.418 --> 01:29.723 undergone something very much akin to a gold rush in western 01:29.723 --> 01:35.128 Wisconsin in this last year in terms of companies coming in and 01:35.128 --> 01:39.466 opening up mines to get the type of sand that they need for 01:39.466 --> 01:42.769 hydrofracking. And I'm going to try to give you 01:42.769 --> 01:46.573 an idea tonight a little bit about why are they coming here. 01:46.573 --> 01:50.043 Why is our resource particularly better than elsewhere? 01:50.043 --> 01:53.380 I'm going to start with the basic process of frac sand, a 01:53.380 --> 01:56.583 little bit about what the characteristics of good material 01:56.583 --> 02:01.388 are, why Wisconsin is a major target, explain a bit about the 02:01.388 --> 02:05.492 geology of the state that has helped form this particular 02:05.492 --> 02:08.995 material and then go into a few of the issues that have come up 02:08.995 --> 02:15.969 in local zoning and in the counties coping with this huge 02:15.969 --> 02:19.372 influx. A lot of counties out in western 02:19.372 --> 02:25.512 Wisconsin basically were, their non-metallic mining regulation 02:25.512 --> 02:30.216 program was basically five or six big old hilltop limestone 02:30.216 --> 02:33.887 quarries, and that's about all they had to deal with. 02:33.887 --> 02:37.691 A county like Trempealeau suddenly has 20 applications for 02:37.691 --> 02:40.960 hydrofrac sand mines, and this has basically overwhelmed them 02:40.960 --> 02:44.464 and needless to say it's kept me pretty busy. 02:44.464 --> 02:49.703 So I'm going to start out with basically looking at what is 02:49.703 --> 02:53.640 hydrofracking and how do you hydrofrac a well. 02:53.640 --> 02:55.909 Well, the principles of hydrofracking are shown down 02:55.909 --> 02:58.878 here in the lower left. You have an oil well or a gas 02:58.878 --> 03:02.315 well. In the past, the basic 03:02.315 --> 03:05.118 technology was to vertical drill, and hydrofracking is not 03:05.118 --> 03:08.021 something that's new. This is a technology that's been 03:08.021 --> 03:12.759 around since just post-World War II, since the 1940s. 03:12.759 --> 03:15.595 Basically, it was a vertical drill hole, they would pump down 03:15.595 --> 03:21.468 pressure, fracture the formation a bit to help oil flow in. 03:21.468 --> 03:25.739 It was a useful technique for secondary recovery of oil and 03:25.739 --> 03:31.144 worked very well. Now the thing that is the new 03:31.144 --> 03:35.482 development in the last few years is horizontal drilling. 03:35.482 --> 03:38.418 We've got technology today, all of you have seen these little 03:38.418 --> 03:44.290 rigs that they drill in cables for putting in fiber optics or 03:44.290 --> 03:48.628 whatever else, but they can drill horizontally and follow 03:48.628 --> 03:51.231 pretty closely on a straight line. 03:51.231 --> 03:55.502 Well, these oil drillers that are currently developing the gas 03:55.502 --> 03:58.805 fields and oil fields where we're using most the hydrofrac 03:58.805 --> 04:02.375 sand, they can drill out a mile almost horizontally. 04:02.375 --> 04:04.911 So that gives them a chance to go right out through the 04:04.911 --> 04:09.482 formation and then they frac the formation by pumping down very 04:09.482 --> 04:15.288 high pressure fluids, a mixture of a number of things, water 04:15.288 --> 04:18.258 being the major ingredient with some polymers in there to help 04:18.258 --> 04:22.929 keep the sand in suspension, but all these trucks up here, if you 04:22.929 --> 04:29.336 see in this upper photo, these are all big compressor rigs from 04:29.336 --> 04:32.238 oil field service companies, all hooked in tandem to a well which 04:32.238 --> 04:35.241 is somewhere here in the middle. Most of these big trailers out 04:35.241 --> 04:38.712 here that you see on the outside are filled up with sand which is 04:38.712 --> 04:43.650 the hydrofrac sand. Have I got a mic that's not 04:43.650 --> 04:45.618 working here? 04:50.757 --> 04:53.059 All right, well that's a fair trade. 04:53.059 --> 04:55.795 [LAUGHTER] To me it doesn't sound 04:55.795 --> 04:59.132 much different. But anyway, what we have 04:59.132 --> 05:02.068 up here, a bunch of compressor trucks. 05:02.068 --> 05:06.172 These are all hooked in tandem pumping a very high pressure in 05:06.172 --> 05:10.777 this formation down here to the point where it actually 05:10.777 --> 05:14.848 fractures the rock around the borehole. 05:14.848 --> 05:17.851 It will break that rock up, which is usually a very what we 05:17.851 --> 05:21.654 call a tight shale. Shale is a very fine grained 05:21.654 --> 05:24.991 rock. Most of our oil and gas in the 05:24.991 --> 05:28.328 past was produced out of sandstone which is very porous 05:28.328 --> 05:33.833 and easy to extract the material from, but the shale is very high 05:33.833 --> 05:37.704 in hydrocarbon but it doesn't have any interconnected porosity 05:37.704 --> 05:40.540 so there's no way to get it out. And they create that porosity by 05:40.540 --> 05:44.177 the hydrofrac process. As soon as they get that pumped 05:44.177 --> 05:48.248 up, they start injecting the sand and the fluids down there. 05:48.248 --> 05:51.418 Basically what happens is sand goes out, goes into these cracks 05:51.418 --> 05:55.288 and when they back the pressure off, shut down those 05:55.288 --> 05:58.725 compressors, the sand stays out there and holds those cracks 05:58.725 --> 06:02.462 open. You hear the term proppant used 06:02.462 --> 06:05.131 every once and a while for hydrofrac sand and that's 06:05.131 --> 06:08.034 exactly what it means. It props open those cracks. 06:08.034 --> 06:12.038 Once they've let the pressure off, the controversial issue is 06:12.038 --> 06:14.507 you get a lot of fluid that comes back out of here, there's 06:14.507 --> 06:18.044 the big fluid ponds you can see over here, that will take on a 06:18.044 --> 06:20.613 lot of formation water and some of the material that's pumped 06:20.613 --> 06:23.750 down in before they can actually produce the gas. 06:23.750 --> 06:26.519 So what makes a good hydrofrac sand? 06:26.519 --> 06:29.489 Well, this is the kind of thing that they're looking for. 06:29.489 --> 06:32.926 These grains are almost perfectly spherical. 06:32.926 --> 06:36.763 Very round, well-rounded as we say. 06:36.763 --> 06:42.836 Almost entirely pure quartz. Very few, some have a little bit 06:42.836 --> 06:45.772 of iron staining on them but generally this stuff is almost 06:45.772 --> 06:48.341 perfectly clean, fine, even sized. 06:48.341 --> 06:51.011 There are some very tight specifications in terms of size 06:51.011 --> 06:54.314 gradation for different types of applications, but basically what 06:54.314 --> 06:58.118 they want is this good clean, pure, very round quartz so it 06:58.118 --> 07:01.988 won't hang up going out there into the cracks and the other 07:01.988 --> 07:05.625 thing is it has to have a very high compressive strength 07:05.625 --> 07:10.163 because when the pressure is left off and those pores tend to 07:10.163 --> 07:13.433 close up, they'll crush a grain that isn't high compressive 07:13.433 --> 07:15.468 strength. 07:18.505 --> 07:22.776 So here is what an ideal frac well would look like. 07:22.776 --> 07:29.249 It has a surface up here, maybe go down probably in this case 07:29.249 --> 07:32.652 6,000 to 8,000 feet where they're doing the fracking. 07:32.652 --> 07:35.855 In many bases it's down to 15,000 feet or more. 07:35.855 --> 07:38.324 Why? That's one of the reason they 07:38.324 --> 07:41.094 need the high compressive strength. 07:41.094 --> 07:43.730 The problems that have developed with hydrofracking, we've heard 07:43.730 --> 07:47.000 a lot of it in the news about contamination of surface 07:47.000 --> 07:51.237 aquifers, you see this little insert here shows the well head, 07:51.237 --> 07:55.475 and basically, key to the hole thing, and you can imagine if 07:55.475 --> 07:58.244 you're going to pump up a lot of pressure in here, you've got to 07:58.244 --> 08:00.547 have that well very well constructed. 08:00.547 --> 08:02.682 It's got to have a good casing and it's got to be well cemented 08:02.682 --> 08:05.151 in. You can't have a problem. 08:05.151 --> 08:07.721 You know what happens when you have a poor cement job, you get 08:07.721 --> 08:11.491 a blow out like the well in the Gulf of Mexico last year, and 08:11.491 --> 08:15.328 you can also get cases where this stuff leaks up around the 08:15.328 --> 08:19.265 casing and can contaminate some water aquifers. 08:19.265 --> 08:22.202 Chances are from the very deep depths you're not going to be 08:22.202 --> 08:27.907 fracking all the way up to where you're going to actually 08:27.907 --> 08:31.144 encounter that aquifer formation near the surface, but the chance 08:31.144 --> 08:33.246 of well failure is a lot greater. 08:33.246 --> 08:35.448 So it's a very important part of the whole thing is to make sure 08:35.448 --> 08:38.718 that these wells are constructed properly. 08:38.718 --> 08:42.756 So, where is the shale gas and oil? 08:42.756 --> 08:46.659 Well, here is a map that was done by the Department of Energy 08:46.659 --> 08:51.064 that basically shows you the regions in the US where we've 08:51.064 --> 08:56.069 had or have these tight shales that are very rich in 08:56.069 --> 09:00.840 hydrocarbon, usually natural gas but also oil as well. 09:00.840 --> 09:03.176 There's a big basin out here in the Appalachians and this is the 09:03.176 --> 09:07.881 area of the Marcellus shale and Utica shale. 09:07.881 --> 09:11.217 There's a few other small ones in the east but the big ones are 09:11.217 --> 09:14.287 like the Barnett down in Texas and Barnett and Woodford out in 09:14.287 --> 09:19.726 west Texas and into New Mexico. The Bakken shale up in North 09:19.726 --> 09:25.732 Dakota is a huge play, lots of formerly unrecoverable 09:25.732 --> 09:28.668 hydrocarbons up here and a number of others out in the 09:28.668 --> 09:32.105 Rocky Mountain basin. These are the areas where most 09:32.105 --> 09:38.378 of this material gets used. To give you an idea just how big 09:38.378 --> 09:42.682 this whole thing is, a colleague of mine from the DNR who is 09:42.682 --> 09:47.554 their point man on frac sand sent this to me the other day, 09:47.554 --> 09:50.690 and it's a satellite image. It's kind of neat. 09:50.690 --> 09:53.393 You can see the aurora up here and everything. 09:53.393 --> 09:55.762 Minneapolis, Minnesota, is over here. 09:55.762 --> 09:58.965 You can see the towns along the highways. 09:58.965 --> 10:03.069 This would be I94, Bismarck, this would be Fargo, probably 10:03.069 --> 10:06.039 Winnipeg up here. You get this huge area of light 10:06.039 --> 10:09.809 out here, light pollution basically. 10:09.809 --> 10:13.913 That's all the lights from the oil and gas rigs in the Bakken 10:13.913 --> 10:16.316 shale play. I've saw this thing and I 10:16.316 --> 10:18.685 thought this is absolutely amazing. 10:18.685 --> 10:21.621 Look at the size of that area. But I've had a couple friends 10:21.621 --> 10:23.957 that I know who have traveled out there through North Dakota 10:23.957 --> 10:26.359 this summer and they say it's just crazy. 10:26.359 --> 10:28.561 There's trucks all over the place. 10:28.561 --> 10:31.064 There's drill rigs. It's a huge venture that's going 10:31.064 --> 10:36.136 on right now. Well, flip back out here at the 10:36.136 --> 10:41.041 east, probably if you've watched any place in the news and heard 10:41.041 --> 10:43.510 about problems with hydrofracking, it's out here in 10:43.510 --> 10:49.482 what they call the Marcellus shale which is in the western 10:49.482 --> 10:54.320 part of Pennsylvania, southwestern part of New York. 10:54.320 --> 10:57.290 But I think you can see one thing that's very obvious on 10:57.290 --> 11:00.860 here is that in some areas like in New York this stuff is 11:00.860 --> 11:05.265 shallowing up to where the actual, these are contours on 11:05.265 --> 11:08.768 the base of the Marcellus are up to around 3,000 feet. 11:08.768 --> 11:11.905 When you're getting 3,000 feet and less, then you're getting 11:11.905 --> 11:16.343 into the realm where I think you can possibly start getting some 11:16.343 --> 11:21.981 problems from the actual fracking material or from the 11:21.981 --> 11:25.485 hydrofracking itself relieving pressure by getting up into 11:25.485 --> 11:29.022 formations that can be potentially water bearing. 11:29.022 --> 11:31.691 So this is the areas that they've really had to take a 11:31.691 --> 11:34.594 second look at it there's been a lot of study and is a lot of 11:34.594 --> 11:37.764 study going on with the Department of Energy and EPA and 11:37.764 --> 11:40.500 with the state geological surveys out east to see what 11:40.500 --> 11:45.672 they can do about getting this better regulated because the 11:45.672 --> 11:48.675 process, although it's a good one and we've been using it for, 11:48.675 --> 11:53.313 as I say, a lot of years, it may not be exactly suitable 11:53.313 --> 11:57.050 everywhere that we have the shale conditions that you can 11:57.050 --> 12:00.553 recover oil from. It's not much of a problem when 12:00.553 --> 12:03.423 you're out there in those big, deep basins, but it may be some 12:03.423 --> 12:06.793 problems in areas like the east. Now here is another example. 12:06.793 --> 12:13.133 This is from that Bakken shale out in North Dakota. 12:13.133 --> 12:16.236 And you can see this is basically what happens. 12:16.236 --> 12:21.107 They drill a whole series of these horizontal borings in the 12:21.107 --> 12:26.880 petroleum bearing or gas bearing strata away from a single well 12:26.880 --> 12:31.084 head, and then once they frac these things, they're on about a 12:31.084 --> 12:35.221 1300-foot spacing, and they frac for a radius of about 500 feet 12:35.221 --> 12:40.727 right around each bore hole here. 12:40.727 --> 12:44.064 And that's enough to increase the porosity to get a whole lot 12:44.064 --> 12:46.599 more recovered. The thing about this is this 12:46.599 --> 12:49.769 isn't to scale. If you look over here, actually 12:49.769 --> 12:52.639 you're looking at, this is 10,000 feet down below the 12:52.639 --> 12:55.709 surface that they're doing the fracking up there in North 12:55.709 --> 12:58.945 Dakota. But this is basically how it's 12:58.945 --> 13:02.382 done and what the process is all about. 13:02.382 --> 13:07.387 So now let's get into the frac sand and where does it come from 13:07.387 --> 13:10.423 and why are we here in Wisconsin looking for it. 13:10.423 --> 13:13.093 Where is the best frac sand? Well, I wonder if you can guess 13:13.093 --> 13:15.428 what color I've used to show that. 13:15.428 --> 13:17.997 [LAUGHTER] Basically, I took the 13:17.997 --> 13:23.069 US geologic map, manipulated it a bit with an arc map, put the 13:23.069 --> 13:26.706 Cambrian sandstone, it's a very mature, about 500-man-year-old 13:26.706 --> 13:33.079 Cambrian age sandstone in red. Good deal up here in Wisconsin, 13:33.079 --> 13:35.448 western Wisconsin, and over here into Minnesota, a little bit 13:35.448 --> 13:38.251 down around the Ozarks and there's some scattered areas out 13:38.251 --> 13:40.887 in the Appalachians, but basically a lot of these others 13:40.887 --> 13:45.392 are not extensive or they're quartzitic, they're a little 13:45.392 --> 13:47.560 tightly cemented and you can't really make good sand out of 13:47.560 --> 13:51.231 them. The best of the stuff is right 13:51.231 --> 13:55.468 here from Minnesota River Valley over through all of western 13:55.468 --> 13:58.638 Wisconsin. This is what's gotten their 13:58.638 --> 14:02.409 interest. So, again, the best stuff out 14:02.409 --> 14:08.415 there is very pure quartz, very highly rounded, good, in this 14:08.415 --> 14:17.524 case, very, these are nice, almost spherical grains. 14:17.524 --> 14:20.360 This stuff is a little bit less rounded, probably from a younger 14:20.360 --> 14:25.131 aged sand. Maybe a couple hundred man years 14:25.131 --> 14:27.834 old Cretaceous age or something like that. 14:27.834 --> 14:30.337 Generally doesn't have the level of maturity what we call, and it 14:30.337 --> 14:34.374 also has possibly rack-rock fragments in it. 14:34.374 --> 14:37.944 Glacial sand, we've got lots of in Wisconsin associated with 14:37.944 --> 14:41.147 glacial deposits, is absolutely unsuitable to use for frac sand 14:41.147 --> 14:43.616 because it's full of all kinds of stuff. 14:43.616 --> 14:45.552 The grains are angular. There's all kinds of rock 14:45.552 --> 14:47.887 fragments. There's all kinds of impurities 14:47.887 --> 14:50.423 and materials in here that wouldn't hold the crushing 14:50.423 --> 14:53.793 strength. It's not usable at all. 14:53.793 --> 14:57.130 So basically the eastern half of the state, the glacial deposits, 14:57.130 --> 14:59.766 I get asked every once in a while by counties over there, 14:59.766 --> 15:02.268 are we going to have frac sand companies coming in to look 15:02.268 --> 15:04.604 around. I say, nope, you're going to be 15:04.604 --> 15:07.140 pretty safe. But the western part, there 15:07.140 --> 15:11.678 you're in trouble. And this area of Minnesota is 15:11.678 --> 15:15.482 less desirable than Wisconsin. I had a call from one of my 15:15.482 --> 15:18.018 colleagues at the Minnesota Geological Survey not too long 15:18.018 --> 15:20.420 ago, and he was asking what's all the deal over there in 15:20.420 --> 15:23.556 Wisconsin, we're not really having all that much? 15:23.556 --> 15:26.226 But there's two things: a couple of our major formations over 15:26.226 --> 15:29.396 here in Wisconsin, which I'll talk about in a few minutes, are 15:29.396 --> 15:32.699 buried a little too deeply over in Minnesota, and also the main 15:32.699 --> 15:37.771 formations like the St. Peter and the Wonewoc are 15:37.771 --> 15:41.975 covered by glacial deposits over here west of the river. 15:41.975 --> 15:45.912 The advantage that we have in Wisconsin is that much of the 15:45.912 --> 15:50.016 most desirable material is in what we call the driftless area, 15:50.016 --> 15:53.019 or the area that the glaciers never actually covered. 15:53.019 --> 15:55.321 So it's right there at the surface. 15:55.321 --> 15:58.024 It's very easy to mine. You don't have to worry about a 15:58.024 --> 15:59.592 lot of overburden. 16:02.195 --> 16:07.300 So, here's the stratigraphic column in Wisconsin, aged to the 16:07.300 --> 16:09.936 different rocks. We go from Precambrian rocks 16:09.936 --> 16:13.206 down here at about three billion years all the way up to 16:13.206 --> 16:16.176 Devonian, our youngest rocks, over in the Milwaukee area. 16:16.176 --> 16:18.745 But our sands come from the lower part of the section down 16:18.745 --> 16:21.748 here basically. Mostly in the Cambrian, there's 16:21.748 --> 16:26.319 the Wonewoc sandstone, which is a good, very pure quartz 16:26.319 --> 16:31.024 sandstone and the Jordan sandstone, and the Jordan 16:31.024 --> 16:33.760 sandstone at the top of the Cambrian, which is just under 16:33.760 --> 16:36.229 the Prairie du Chien limestone. And then we have the St. 16:36.229 --> 16:38.431 Peter sandstone, which is slightly younger and occurs 16:38.431 --> 16:43.737 throughout much of southern Wisconsin and southwestern 16:43.737 --> 16:47.073 Wisconsin, but we're also seeing a little bit of interest grow in 16:47.073 --> 16:50.010 the Mt. Simon sandstone, which is at the 16:50.010 --> 16:53.046 very base of the section. And this is also a very mature 16:53.046 --> 16:56.216 sandstone. Why are these such good, pure 16:56.216 --> 16:59.552 sandstones? Basically, there was a huge, 16:59.552 --> 17:04.190 long period of weathering that occurred on the continent after 17:04.190 --> 17:08.762 the end of Precambrian time from about a billion years ago to 17:08.762 --> 17:11.865 around 500 million years when the continent was flooded and 17:11.865 --> 17:14.434 the Cambrian sands were deposited. 17:14.434 --> 17:16.736 And there was no vegetation around at the time, very intense 17:16.736 --> 17:20.140 weathering, this stuff got kicked around, blown around, 17:20.140 --> 17:23.243 washed around by streams. Most of the unstable rock 17:23.243 --> 17:27.113 fragments, unstable minerals all were destroyed in the time and 17:27.113 --> 17:30.016 you were left with nothing but the most durable stuff which is 17:30.016 --> 17:32.919 good, pure quartz and it was nicely rounded. 17:32.919 --> 17:38.258 So that's the stuff that got incorporated into the Cambrian 17:38.258 --> 17:41.461 sands, and that's the stuff that we've even got a little bit of 17:41.461 --> 17:44.097 it as late at the St. Peter. But that's what the sand 17:44.097 --> 17:48.168 industry is interested in. So let's start up in the north, 17:48.168 --> 17:51.171 and I'll show you a little bit of what we're looking at. 17:51.171 --> 17:55.408 This is in Barron County in northwestern Wisconsin. 17:55.408 --> 17:59.946 The Jordan sandstone is shown in here in an orange color. 17:59.946 --> 18:03.083 Up in this area and in the northern part of Chippewa County 18:03.083 --> 18:07.253 where we've had probably 10 or 15 different operations try to 18:07.253 --> 18:12.192 locate in the last year, half a dozen or more in Barron County, 18:12.192 --> 18:14.694 they're interested in mining this Jordan sandstone because 18:14.694 --> 18:18.598 it's very coarse, it will meet what's called the 20/40 size 18:18.598 --> 18:21.801 gradation which is about the coarsest of the frac sands, and 18:21.801 --> 18:24.771 it's exposed right near the surface. 18:24.771 --> 18:27.807 Even though this area is glaciated, there is a lot of 18:27.807 --> 18:31.544 exposure near the surface, and you don't have a cap over the 18:31.544 --> 18:34.147 top of the Prairie du Chien limestone which is shown over 18:34.147 --> 18:37.917 here in the blue color. So there's quite a bit of 18:37.917 --> 18:41.421 interest in development up here. One of the keys which I'll talk 18:41.421 --> 18:45.725 about quite a bit during the talk is transportation. 18:45.725 --> 18:47.827 This is a rail line coming down here. 18:47.827 --> 18:50.230 I don't know that it's complete all the way to Chippewa Falls 18:50.230 --> 18:52.332 anymore. They may have abandoned some of 18:52.332 --> 18:54.968 it. This section that has been 18:54.968 --> 18:57.737 abandoned out here west of Cameron and Barron, the DOT is 18:57.737 --> 19:01.007 actually talking about funding rebuilding that track out as far 19:01.007 --> 19:05.979 as Almena just to serve about three or four major sand mines 19:05.979 --> 19:09.983 that are going in out in the western part of Barron County. 19:09.983 --> 19:13.753 So, let's take a look. The geology in pre-boom 19:13.753 --> 19:17.023 production sites in west central Wisconsin looks something like 19:17.023 --> 19:19.659 this. This is a map that I worked on 19:19.659 --> 19:23.697 back in the 1980s. We had, up until a couple years 19:23.697 --> 19:28.034 ago, only three or four operations out there. 19:28.034 --> 19:31.471 We had two old mines over here along the river at Maiden Rock 19:31.471 --> 19:34.874 and at Bay City in Pierce County. 19:34.874 --> 19:37.544 And these were mines that mined the Jordan formation 19:37.544 --> 19:40.246 underground. They actually went in through a 19:40.246 --> 19:43.383 tunnel driven into the side of the bluff along the Mississippi 19:43.383 --> 19:46.720 River and mined the material out underground by what we called 19:46.720 --> 19:50.223 room and pillar method. And that way they could just get 19:50.223 --> 19:56.196 the very desirable, very coarse member of the Jordan. 19:56.196 --> 20:01.735 Other areas we had up in the north, Fairmount Minerals who 20:01.735 --> 20:05.238 came in and bought out these two old mines down here, started a 20:05.238 --> 20:09.442 new plant a year or two ago, or probably three or four years 20:09.442 --> 20:12.112 now, up in Menomonie. And they're in this other 20:12.112 --> 20:14.247 formation shown in red which is called the Wonewoc. 20:14.247 --> 20:18.051 This is the Wonewoc formation in red. 20:18.051 --> 20:20.520 The Jordan that I pointed out is in the gold color. 20:20.520 --> 20:23.656 If you notice, there's not as much area of Jordan. 20:23.656 --> 20:26.359 That's because it's a steep cliff former and forms long in 20:26.359 --> 20:29.362 the bluffs or on the steep sides of valleys and it's very 20:29.362 --> 20:33.166 inaccessible except to go in underground. 20:33.166 --> 20:36.670 Whereas, a lot of surface exposure of the Wonewoc and 20:36.670 --> 20:40.273 that's the target a lot of the companies are looking at. 20:40.273 --> 20:42.942 Badger Mining Company, which has been in business for Wisconsin 20:42.942 --> 20:47.313 for years and years, has a large mine over at Taylor in Jackson 20:47.313 --> 20:49.849 County. And this one has been there for 20:49.849 --> 20:54.220 about 30 years, and it produces a lot of frac sand plus foundry 20:54.220 --> 20:57.824 sand and various other industrial sand products. 20:57.824 --> 21:02.529 But that was where we were probably five years ago. 21:02.529 --> 21:04.898 But this gives you an idea of what the geology is out in the 21:04.898 --> 21:07.367 area that they're basically looking. 21:07.367 --> 21:11.905 The Mt. Simon sandstone is shown in the 21:11.905 --> 21:14.808 light tan color, and we're seeing a lot of interest in that 21:14.808 --> 21:18.144 down in the area around Tomah and Black River Falls where this 21:18.144 --> 21:23.850 material has been very heavily weathered and it's in part 21:23.850 --> 21:27.120 alluvial material as well as a bedrock material and it's being 21:27.120 --> 21:32.525 exploited as a waste product from cranberry bog development. 21:32.525 --> 21:36.062 It's being bought up by the frac sand miners. 21:36.062 --> 21:38.064 But basically most of the new mines that you hear about are 21:38.064 --> 21:40.700 going in areas like Buffalo and Trempealeau County are in this 21:40.700 --> 21:44.771 Wonewoc. Here's a little closer look at 21:44.771 --> 21:47.774 it. Badger in Taylor. 21:47.774 --> 21:51.511 There's now a brand new mine called Winn Bay Sands put in by 21:51.511 --> 21:54.914 a Canadian company down here at Blair in Trempealeau County. 21:54.914 --> 21:58.852 The one good advantage that these two operations have is 21:58.852 --> 22:01.421 they're located on what was the old Green Bay and western 22:01.421 --> 22:05.925 railroad route which goes down and connects with the northern 22:05.925 --> 22:08.261 Santa Fe along the Mississippi. So they do have rail shipping 22:08.261 --> 22:11.898 access. That's a very important thing as 22:11.898 --> 22:14.300 far as moving a bulk commodity like this. 22:14.300 --> 22:18.972 What's Wonewoc sandstone look like? 22:18.972 --> 22:21.307 It's fairly impressive and outcrops many places. 22:21.307 --> 22:26.546 If you've driven down, this is highway 14, junction with 35 22:26.546 --> 22:31.418 right south of La Crosse. That corner, this is all Wonewoc 22:31.418 --> 22:35.321 in this section. It's a very pure, if you go up 22:35.321 --> 22:38.158 and pick out a handful of it or break some of it as you can in 22:38.158 --> 22:44.230 this road cut which is just to the east on I90 over near west 22:44.230 --> 22:48.535 Salem, you can just pick this stuff up and break it up. 22:48.535 --> 22:51.104 It's friable enough that you can break it up with your hand, and 22:51.104 --> 22:53.740 it looks like just little tiny marbles if you look at it 22:53.740 --> 22:56.743 through a hand lens. But this is what the Wonewoc 22:56.743 --> 22:59.612 looks like. It's capped over on top by what 22:59.612 --> 23:02.182 we call the a tunnel city formation which is a very fine 23:02.182 --> 23:07.120 grained what we call glauconitic sandstone. 23:07.120 --> 23:09.622 Has a lot of phosphatic material in it. 23:09.622 --> 23:12.525 This material actually is a very good material if you don't have 23:12.525 --> 23:15.095 too much of it to give you problems. 23:15.095 --> 23:19.232 It's overburden is very good to use in your reclamation of a 23:19.232 --> 23:22.902 mine that you're trying to take out the Wonewoc. 23:24.104 --> 23:26.706 One of the best examples of a mine of the Wonewoc is the 23:26.706 --> 23:29.309 Badger operation in Taylor which, as I said, has been in 23:29.309 --> 23:31.644 business for many years. This is an old photo. 23:31.644 --> 23:34.047 If you take a look at it today, there's about twice as many 23:34.047 --> 23:36.916 buildings in here. One thing this operation has 23:36.916 --> 23:39.252 done, it's been here for many, many years, it's won many awards 23:39.252 --> 23:42.455 for reclamation, they've done a very good job of restoring the 23:42.455 --> 23:46.393 site. What they basically do in their 23:46.393 --> 23:50.764 mining operation is they wash this stuff down in a sump. 23:50.764 --> 23:55.035 They basically will bulldoze it or rip it because it's very 23:55.035 --> 23:57.570 soft. They don't have to blast much on 23:57.570 --> 24:00.273 it. Wash it down into a sump, pump 24:00.273 --> 24:03.243 it up in a slurry to the top of a tower like this where it goes 24:03.243 --> 24:06.680 through a process of washing through different screens and 24:06.680 --> 24:10.784 sieves and then it's dewatered in a series of a cyclone 24:10.784 --> 24:13.787 dewaterers down at the bottom and that's how they sort and 24:13.787 --> 24:19.526 classify the sand. The Jordan sandstone is another 24:19.526 --> 24:21.861 important formation out in western Wisconsin. 24:21.861 --> 24:24.330 A little bit younger than the Wonewoc. 24:24.330 --> 24:27.901 This is the Jordan right below the Prairie du Chien limestone. 24:27.901 --> 24:30.670 This is in a cut south of the town of Arcadia over in 24:30.670 --> 24:35.608 Trempealeau County. Jordan is a very good material, 24:35.608 --> 24:39.646 has the coarsest sand in it, highly desirable but you can 24:39.646 --> 24:43.817 have generally a good cap of limestone on top that, unless 24:43.817 --> 24:48.321 that's been quarried away as it has part way in this case, you 24:48.321 --> 24:50.957 have a hard time getting at that material unless you go in from 24:50.957 --> 24:54.661 an underground. And a lot of the sand companies 24:54.661 --> 24:57.731 are very, very leery of dealing with underground mining even 24:57.731 --> 25:00.200 though we've had a couple successful operations for 40 25:00.200 --> 25:03.670 years over in Pierce County. Problems you can get into in 25:03.670 --> 25:06.673 there. You can get cement. 25:06.673 --> 25:09.709 This is a silica cemented area within that. 25:09.709 --> 25:12.812 That's just as hard as the quartz site up at Baraboo. 25:12.812 --> 25:16.182 And if you run into this kind of material in a sand mine, this is 25:16.182 --> 25:21.988 going to give you no end of grief. 25:21.988 --> 25:24.591 And I'm very surprised that a lot of companies that I'm aware 25:24.591 --> 25:27.127 of that have come in and started looking and prospecting for sand 25:27.127 --> 25:30.196 in western Wisconsin, you'll ask them and they haven't done much 25:30.196 --> 25:33.566 drilling, they haven't done much evaluation work. 25:33.566 --> 25:36.903 They've just gone in here, look for unzoned town, basically, 25:36.903 --> 25:39.205 where they don't have to go through a lot of hassle, bought 25:39.205 --> 25:43.376 up property and gone to the county to get their reclamation 25:43.376 --> 25:47.480 permit which is required under law, and otherwise started out 25:47.480 --> 25:51.818 and are digging sand and hauling it down to Minnesota or wherever 25:51.818 --> 25:56.022 they've got a rail connection and mining it without really 25:56.022 --> 25:58.525 thinking too much about that. And I think we're going to have 25:58.525 --> 26:01.194 some in for a surprise one of these days. 26:01.194 --> 26:03.663 This is the underground mine in the Jordan over at Maiden Rock 26:03.663 --> 26:09.402 in Pierce County. The old mine at Bay City, which 26:09.402 --> 26:12.505 was recently reopened, was closed for a while and 26:12.505 --> 26:15.775 abandoned, and what they did basically was put in a culvert 26:15.775 --> 26:19.045 pipe with grading on there, and bats love to go in and hibernate 26:19.045 --> 26:22.415 in these things. And the bats are in here in the 26:22.415 --> 26:25.251 active mine down at Maiden Rock at the time. 26:25.251 --> 26:28.154 They go back off into corners that no one, where there's not 26:28.154 --> 26:30.290 much operation. It doesn't seem to bother them a 26:30.290 --> 26:32.726 bit. But basically the entire 26:32.726 --> 26:35.261 operation is carried on underground in here, in terms of 26:35.261 --> 26:39.165 the wet sieving process classification. 26:39.165 --> 26:43.370 It's pumped out in a series of pipes to the dry plant which is 26:43.370 --> 26:47.307 a drying kiln located right out here. 26:47.307 --> 26:50.443 To add it back into the mine is right back in here. 26:50.443 --> 26:53.413 If you go down, especially to this place again today, you'll 26:53.413 --> 26:55.648 see there's all kind of buildings around. 26:55.648 --> 26:57.951 It's expanded considerably since the boom started. 26:57.951 --> 27:00.520 But it's dried in this area in a kiln. 27:00.520 --> 27:02.889 And there's a conveyor system that takes it right under 27:02.889 --> 27:05.091 highway 35 where they can load directly on to the northern 27:05.091 --> 27:08.428 Santa Fe. So sand producing areas in 27:08.428 --> 27:11.164 western counties, let's just kind of sum this up. 27:11.164 --> 27:13.299 We've got Bay City and Maiden Rock, two old underground mines 27:13.299 --> 27:16.002 over here. One up in Menomonie. 27:16.002 --> 27:20.907 Taylor and the Wonewoc down at Jackson County. 27:20.907 --> 27:24.010 We also have a big mine located up near where the power plant is 27:24.010 --> 27:26.646 just south of Portage. It's owned by the Unimin 27:26.646 --> 27:30.083 Corporation. Portage and the Menomonie mines 27:30.083 --> 27:33.987 both are in Wonewoc, and the Wonewoc has a little more finer 27:33.987 --> 27:38.124 material in it but it's also very pure quartz. 27:38.124 --> 27:41.895 So they've been able, in both of these mines, to partner with 27:41.895 --> 27:45.732 Cardinal Glass Company, which is a major glass producer, has a 27:45.732 --> 27:49.235 plant in Portage and also one up in Menomonie, the material they 27:49.235 --> 27:53.273 can't use for hydrofrac sand, they can sell to the glass 27:53.273 --> 27:55.742 company. It's used as a basis for making 27:55.742 --> 27:56.876 glass. 28:02.682 --> 28:04.851 The other formation that's starting to show a little bit of 28:04.851 --> 28:07.053 interest is the Mt. Simon sandstone. 28:07.053 --> 28:09.356 And I'm a little bit surprised at this. 28:09.356 --> 28:12.025 This is the base of Mt. Simon right here, resting on the 28:12.025 --> 28:15.095 Precambrian, which is weathered granite, up at Chippewa Falls. 28:15.095 --> 28:18.365 Much of the lower part of Mt. Simon is full the clay streaks, 28:18.365 --> 28:22.302 it's got very pebbly material in it, but basically is pure enough 28:22.302 --> 28:25.271 quartz that they can sort this stuff out by the sieving process 28:25.271 --> 28:28.842 and whatever and concentrated material that they can use for 28:28.842 --> 28:33.146 sand. And once you get farther beyond 28:33.146 --> 28:36.383 the edge of the outcrop area of the Wonewoc, sort of up into 28:36.383 --> 28:40.020 central Wisconsin, this is the formation that's available to 28:40.020 --> 28:42.522 use. And when you hear about 28:42.522 --> 28:45.658 operations up in Wood County and areas like that, northern Clark 28:45.658 --> 28:48.028 County, they're in the Mt. Simon. 28:50.263 --> 28:55.535 Another type of operation that we're seeing and started a 28:55.535 --> 28:58.104 couple years ago, basically this is a processing plant over in 28:58.104 --> 29:01.207 the Tomah area, and you can see these if you drive up highway 94 29:01.207 --> 29:04.411 and you look north, about Oakdale and that area, you'll 29:04.411 --> 29:08.982 see these great big piles of sand, big piles of white sand. 29:08.982 --> 29:14.054 And a lot of this stuff is actually from waste material 29:14.054 --> 29:17.857 produced by cranberry growers. As they're expanding their 29:17.857 --> 29:20.827 cranberry bogs and they're excavating out these big ponds 29:20.827 --> 29:23.797 for water storage, they're coming up with a lot of sand. 29:23.797 --> 29:27.100 Well, a smart entrepreneur from Texas came up here from a 29:27.100 --> 29:30.337 company called Proppant Specialists, and he decided I 29:30.337 --> 29:35.141 could go in and buy this sand, I wouldn't have to mine it so I 29:35.141 --> 29:37.577 wouldn't have to worry about getting any kind of permits to 29:37.577 --> 29:42.349 mine, I wouldn't have to deal with mine safety and MSHA, and I 29:42.349 --> 29:45.318 wouldn't even have to get a NR 135 reclamation permit because 29:45.318 --> 29:47.754 I'm just buying agricultural waste here. 29:47.754 --> 29:51.458 And so he set up a plant and actually all the major producers 29:51.458 --> 29:53.927 in the state at the time hated him for it but it's a pretty 29:53.927 --> 29:56.463 good business plan. It's kind of clever. 29:56.463 --> 29:59.532 They still are producing a lot of sand out of this. 29:59.532 --> 30:02.369 And this is in part alluvial material and it's in part 30:02.369 --> 30:05.472 bedrock material. It would be Mt. Simon 30:05.472 --> 30:08.808 bedrock in this area, but if you look around some of the 30:08.808 --> 30:11.945 high hills in there, like the bluffs you see up at Camp 30:11.945 --> 30:15.849 Douglas area and around there, these are big bluffs of 30:15.849 --> 30:20.153 Galesville or Wonewoc sandstone, and they're sitting out there on 30:20.153 --> 30:22.822 a plain of Mt. Simon, and this stuff was all 30:22.822 --> 30:26.526 reworked and weathered during the glacial times when that area 30:26.526 --> 30:29.195 was filled with Glacial Lake Wisconsin. 30:29.195 --> 30:32.098 And Glacial Lake Wisconsin on the eastern side, the sands over 30:32.098 --> 30:35.869 in, say, Portage, Adams County, that area, are all full of 30:35.869 --> 30:38.738 glacial material and not suitable, but since this stuff 30:38.738 --> 30:42.509 is all locally derived and is right there and is already very 30:42.509 --> 30:47.814 much disaggregated soft material, it's a natural for 30:47.814 --> 30:51.484 development. And we've had probably about 30:51.484 --> 30:56.823 five or six companies come in looking at developing sand mines 30:56.823 --> 31:01.127 and plants within using this type of material in particularly 31:01.127 --> 31:06.132 the area of Monroe County. So let's take a look at the 31:06.132 --> 31:09.235 St. Peter sandstone. This is the youngest of the 31:09.235 --> 31:11.504 bunch. The St. Peter in our area 31:11.504 --> 31:14.074 up here is a little bit finer grain than it 31:14.074 --> 31:16.643 is in areas like down in Illinois. 31:16.643 --> 31:19.813 It hasn't really received much interest as far as being used 31:19.813 --> 31:23.249 for frac sand. The big production areas are 31:23.249 --> 31:28.054 over here in Green Lake County. There used to be several old 31:28.054 --> 31:31.424 abandoned operations. There's a big one, Badger's 31:31.424 --> 31:35.662 Fairwater plant over here at a place called Utley near 31:35.662 --> 31:39.132 Fairwater on the border with Fond du Lac County. 31:39.132 --> 31:43.870 There's Gelhar Company has a mine at Markesan. 31:43.870 --> 31:49.009 There's a number of old abandoned foundry sand 31:49.009 --> 31:52.012 operations west of New Glarus and down near Hanover in Rock 31:52.012 --> 31:56.616 County. 32:00.820 --> 32:03.490 Out here west of Madison and Dane County, there was a large 32:03.490 --> 32:07.027 foundry sand mine out there. But a lot of St. Peter 32:07.027 --> 32:09.863 is exposed down here in the southern part of the state. 32:09.863 --> 32:12.866 In general, the interest in St. Peter has been, as I say, for a 32:12.866 --> 32:15.902 foundry sand because it's not coarse enough grain and it 32:15.902 --> 32:19.539 doesn't have quite as much compressive strength as the 32:19.539 --> 32:23.576 Cambrian sands so it's not as suitable for a frac sand, but 32:23.576 --> 32:29.616 they're having, right now, a shortage of foundry sands 32:29.616 --> 32:32.419 because many of the producers in other areas that could convert 32:32.419 --> 32:35.288 over to producing frac sand because the market has been so 32:35.288 --> 32:37.824 hot in the last year have given up on production of foundry 32:37.824 --> 32:41.561 sand. So we're really getting a lot of 32:41.561 --> 32:44.798 demand for foundry sand over in this part of the state. 32:44.798 --> 32:47.701 A number of companies are looking at expanding their 32:47.701 --> 32:50.170 resources. And you wonder, well, with a 32:50.170 --> 32:53.440 down economy, why is there such a big deal for foundry sand? 32:53.440 --> 32:56.743 We're the manhole cover capitol of the world here in Wisconsin. 32:56.743 --> 32:59.879 You see all the Nina Foundry and Brillion Iron Works out there on 32:59.879 --> 33:04.384 every manhole and drain out there in the streets. 33:04.384 --> 33:10.023 But basically one of the company people was telling me that 33:10.023 --> 33:13.727 companies like Oshkosh Truck that have gotten these big 33:13.727 --> 33:16.229 multimillion dollar contracts from the government to produce 33:16.229 --> 33:18.965 armored vehicles and such for the military are using a lot of 33:18.965 --> 33:22.168 castings, and that's one of the sources that there's a shortage 33:22.168 --> 33:26.439 of actual good foundry sand on the market right now. 33:29.743 --> 33:32.212 So St. Peter, this is what St. Peter 33:32.212 --> 33:34.447 basically looks like. Down in Iowa County you can see 33:34.447 --> 33:36.549 these big bluffs in a lot of places. 33:36.549 --> 33:39.586 Down south of Madison it's believed that it was actually a 33:39.586 --> 33:43.523 dune sand. Aeolian origin in some areas in 33:43.523 --> 33:46.993 here. You'll see these very big broad 33:46.993 --> 33:49.396 cross beds. Generally, the St. Peter 33:49.396 --> 33:52.465 is a very soft material. You can walk up to an outcrop, 33:52.465 --> 33:56.436 pull it out. It's frosted very, it looks like 33:56.436 --> 33:59.272 sugar when you pick it up. Very fine grained and very 33:59.272 --> 34:02.742 rounded. But it doesn't quite have the 34:02.742 --> 34:05.278 characteristics for frac sand that the old Cambrian sandstones 34:05.278 --> 34:08.081 do. One of our bigger operations of 34:08.081 --> 34:11.017 the St. Peter is up at the Badger 34:11.017 --> 34:14.421 Fairwater plant. Basically, there they're doing 34:14.421 --> 34:19.225 entirely hydraulic mining. They basically push sand or 34:19.225 --> 34:22.862 disaggregated St. Peter sandstone down into a sump 34:22.862 --> 34:26.299 and suck it up the same way as they do over at Taylor, pump 34:26.299 --> 34:29.636 that up to a plant where it goes through and is processed and 34:29.636 --> 34:33.473 then put into stockpiles and shipped for delivery primarily 34:33.473 --> 34:37.911 to the foundry industry. St. Peter 34:37.911 --> 34:40.413 is a very difficult formation to work, whereas over 34:40.413 --> 34:43.783 in the west, the Jordan and the Wonewoc are fairly uniform 34:43.783 --> 34:46.586 thickness. The St. Peter 34:46.586 --> 34:49.255 can go, it was formed in channels that were cut into the 34:49.255 --> 34:53.193 underlying Prairie du Chien limestone, and it can actually 34:53.193 --> 34:57.731 vary from nothing here in this quarry down at Markesan in 34:57.731 --> 35:00.934 southern Green Lake County. This is a Prairie du Chien 35:00.934 --> 35:03.970 formation down here. Platteville formation above. 35:03.970 --> 35:08.842 That little rusty sort of line horizon in there is St. Peter. 35:08.842 --> 35:15.482 Five miles north of there this is the AF Gelhar Sand plant and 35:15.482 --> 35:21.187 mine just north of Markesan, and he has over 200 feet of material 35:21.187 --> 35:25.158 here that he's mining for foundry sand. 35:25.158 --> 35:28.194 Once you get down to the base of the St. Peter, 35:28.194 --> 35:30.397 it's pretty easy to tell when you're running out of it 35:30.397 --> 35:33.400 because you get into a very red shale which is just reworked 35:33.400 --> 35:38.071 material from that weathering surface on the top of the 35:38.071 --> 35:43.176 Prairie du Chien before the St. Peter was actually deposited. 35:43.176 --> 35:47.414 So, what are the prospects for sand mining in south western 35:47.414 --> 35:51.017 Wisconsin? Right now I'm getting ready for 35:51.017 --> 35:54.587 Friday. I'm going down for a meeting 35:54.587 --> 35:56.990 with the Lower Wisconsin Riverway Commission is having a 35:56.990 --> 36:00.360 meeting down in Spring Green in which we're going to talk about 36:00.360 --> 36:03.496 potential for sand development down here in the lower Wisconsin 36:03.496 --> 36:09.369 valley. The Jordan is exposed in a lot 36:09.369 --> 36:14.908 of the bluffs along these valleys by Boscobel, areas stuff 36:14.908 --> 36:17.444 as that. St. Peter is shown in that dark 36:17.444 --> 36:22.315 green color, potential is still down there. 36:22.315 --> 36:24.984 One good thing about it, they have the service of that 36:24.984 --> 36:29.856 Wisconsin central line that goes west of Madison down to bridge 36:29.856 --> 36:33.560 port along the river, and this has been a key to getting people 36:33.560 --> 36:37.897 thinking about development. There's other issues down here 36:37.897 --> 36:41.134 in terms of preserving the riverway and various aesthetic 36:41.134 --> 36:45.839 issues, and I'm not sure just where this is going to go, but 36:45.839 --> 36:48.808 there have been some serious inquiries from some companies as 36:48.808 --> 36:52.312 to what the resources are down here and a number of landowners 36:52.312 --> 36:55.148 have been approached. Much of the area of south 36:55.148 --> 36:58.518 western Wisconsin, which exposes a lot of St. Peter 36:58.518 --> 37:01.087 sandstone in many of the valleys down here in the 37:01.087 --> 37:05.792 Kickapoo and Platte Rivers and various others, is not 37:05.792 --> 37:13.833 accessible because the railroads basically ended in, used to have 37:13.833 --> 37:16.169 rails through much of that area but it ends at Monroe at this 37:16.169 --> 37:18.738 time. I wouldn't doubt that there 37:18.738 --> 37:21.007 would be some interest in development, say, in Rock and 37:21.007 --> 37:26.012 eastern Green County. Taking a closer look at Iowa 37:26.012 --> 37:29.949 County. This is map recently completed. 37:29.949 --> 37:34.287 There's Lone Rock, Spring Green. The Jordan outcrop is shown. 37:34.287 --> 37:38.091 Everything else has been shown in the tan color here in the 37:38.091 --> 37:41.161 rest of the formation. The Jordan outcrop area is shown 37:41.161 --> 37:44.097 in that red color which indicates there's a lot of it 37:44.097 --> 37:46.599 available up to down these valleys. 37:46.599 --> 37:51.037 And once you get on top, the St. Peter is shown in the green. 37:51.037 --> 37:54.074 So there's definitely potential resource down there. 37:54.074 --> 37:57.510 So let's look at some of the issues that surround sand mining 37:57.510 --> 38:01.014 today and just where we're going with it. 38:01.014 --> 38:05.785 Some of the advantages that you can't ignore: local jobs and 38:05.785 --> 38:09.389 economic growth. There's probably an average of 38:09.389 --> 38:12.425 20 people associated or more with working in one of these 38:12.425 --> 38:16.463 mines, 20-30 jobs. Quite a lot of jobs in the 38:16.463 --> 38:19.065 construction industry right now, particularly up in Chippewa 38:19.065 --> 38:21.835 Valley and areas like that and constructing some of the bigger, 38:21.835 --> 38:26.239 newer plants. The demand for natural gas as a 38:26.239 --> 38:29.843 clean fuel, I think, is going to be around for a while. 38:29.843 --> 38:32.212 The time it will take us to phase out petroleum, even with 38:32.212 --> 38:35.482 our best intentions, if we want to get away from petroleum based 38:35.482 --> 38:38.551 fuels, I don't care what you say, we're not going to be able 38:38.551 --> 38:42.856 to do it overnight, and there's going to be an interest to 38:42.856 --> 38:47.494 develop our own resources here. So I think, number one, the 38:47.494 --> 38:52.999 increasing use of natural gas as a fuel for generation of 38:52.999 --> 38:57.637 electricity to replace coal is something that we've got not a 38:57.637 --> 39:00.940 whole lot of choices, burn more coal, build more nukes, whatever 39:00.940 --> 39:07.247 else, but gas has proven to be a good, clean fuel. 39:07.247 --> 39:10.550 We're looking 5-10 years ago at importing liquified petroleum 39:10.550 --> 39:16.022 gas from the Middle East. Today, with this technology and 39:16.022 --> 39:18.625 some of those basins out in the west, we have the potential of 39:18.625 --> 39:21.561 actually being self-sufficient in terms of our natural gas 39:21.561 --> 39:24.964 supply. 39:28.134 --> 39:30.470 Wisconsin has a hundred-year-plus history of 39:30.470 --> 39:33.006 industrial sand mining. We've been mining sand, as I 39:33.006 --> 39:36.276 say, for the foundry industry probably since the mid-19th 39:36.276 --> 39:40.780 century with very few environmental or any other kind 39:40.780 --> 39:45.585 of problems. And when we compare sand mining 39:45.585 --> 39:49.522 to other types of mining, basically industrial sand mining 39:49.522 --> 39:52.258 has a minimum environmental impact. 39:52.258 --> 39:57.263 Sand mines are among the easier types of operations to reclaim. 39:57.263 --> 39:59.532 If you've heard a little bit about the iron mine proposed up 39:59.532 --> 40:04.537 north, that would be a definite contrast in terms of ease of 40:04.537 --> 40:10.777 reclamation, but sand mining, basically, are fairly easy to 40:10.777 --> 40:14.080 reclaim back into agricultural land or wild life habit, 40:14.080 --> 40:18.485 whatever, and reclamation is now required by law in Wisconsin. 40:18.485 --> 40:24.157 There's no way that you can mine without ultimately reclaiming. 40:24.157 --> 40:26.993 Potential problems and issues that are out there, and you hear 40:26.993 --> 40:31.064 these raised a lot. Groundwater usage and potential 40:31.064 --> 40:33.900 for groundwater contamination. 40:36.002 --> 40:39.372 You hear various concerns about the amount of water that some of 40:39.372 --> 40:42.776 these operations use to process the sand. 40:42.776 --> 40:47.013 As I'll say a little bit later, they're very efficient in terms 40:47.013 --> 40:51.384 of how they recycle the water. Air quality is an issue that 40:51.384 --> 40:54.220 there's been a lot of information and a lot of 40:54.220 --> 40:57.390 misinformation put out about. Fugitive dust, risk from 40:57.390 --> 41:01.928 breathing crystalline silica, these are all real things to 41:01.928 --> 41:07.167 consider, but I think in the end we'll find they're very minor 41:07.167 --> 41:13.640 when compared to other issues involved. 41:13.640 --> 41:16.643 A huge one, which nobody really anticipated and has caused an 41:16.643 --> 41:19.813 awful lot of concern, particularly political concern 41:19.813 --> 41:23.917 among the town associations, county associations, various 41:23.917 --> 41:27.020 local governments, is truck traffic. 41:27.020 --> 41:30.490 Up until this time, all of our big operations, Badger, 41:30.490 --> 41:35.395 operations over along the river, the underground mines, the mines 41:35.395 --> 41:38.798 up in the east in the St. Peter have all been based on the 41:38.798 --> 41:42.702 rail and rail transport. Now we're looking at a lot of 41:42.702 --> 41:45.739 operations in places like Chippewa and Barron County where 41:45.739 --> 41:50.543 they build a centralized plant and are going to truck this 41:50.543 --> 41:55.548 material in from a series of different mines out here. 41:55.548 --> 41:59.152 And there's a large plant by a company called EOG that's just 41:59.152 --> 42:01.721 been built on the north side of Chippewa Falls, and they're 42:01.721 --> 42:05.592 anticipating a truck a minute hauling into that plant during 42:05.592 --> 42:09.195 their producing season. It's going through a roundabout, 42:09.195 --> 42:12.098 one of my favorite traffic control devices, on the north 42:12.098 --> 42:17.437 side of Chippewa Falls at highway 124 and S. And this is 42:17.437 --> 42:20.006 going to be one a minute of these trucks going in there and 42:20.006 --> 42:23.309 empties coming back. This is posing problems that 42:23.309 --> 42:26.446 we've never had to deal with before which is one thing that's 42:26.446 --> 42:29.749 going to be a lot of concern. Blasting and potential damage, 42:29.749 --> 42:32.919 everybody's worried about that, but there's very little blasting 42:32.919 --> 42:36.389 involved in sand mining. Noise levels, hours of 42:36.389 --> 42:40.193 operation, these are things that where you do have zoning are 42:40.193 --> 42:42.796 dealt with in the conditional use permit. 42:42.796 --> 42:45.598 Reclamation and subsequent land use, there's always some 42:45.598 --> 42:48.168 disagreements about that but there's no disagreement about 42:48.168 --> 42:52.105 reclamation because reclamation is a requirement by law in the 42:52.105 --> 42:54.774 state of Wisconsin. Any property before it can be 42:54.774 --> 42:58.244 even opened and started is required to have a reclamation 42:58.244 --> 43:01.481 plan in place. So how serious are the problems 43:01.481 --> 43:05.151 and how do we deal with them? Groundwater use, DNR regulates 43:05.151 --> 43:08.455 high capacity wells very closely, and high capacity wells 43:08.455 --> 43:12.659 are wells that draw anything more than 70 gallons a minute. 43:12.659 --> 43:15.495 This includes most industrial wells and irrigation wells, such 43:15.495 --> 43:19.666 things as that. Permits are required to get a 43:19.666 --> 43:25.405 fairly extensive review. I took part in a program up in 43:25.405 --> 43:29.743 Barron County talking to their board and Laura Lynch from the 43:29.743 --> 43:32.879 DNR who does a lot of the approval work gave a very good 43:32.879 --> 43:36.516 summary of the procedures that go through and evaluating the 43:36.516 --> 43:39.853 effects on trout streams and surface water and whatever else 43:39.853 --> 43:43.723 in their municipal water supplies, so there's quite a bit 43:43.723 --> 43:47.160 of review that goes into the water process. 43:47.160 --> 43:51.364 When you look at it, I was involved up in Dune County and 43:51.364 --> 43:54.868 permitting the original mine east of Menomonie and people 43:54.868 --> 43:57.604 were looking out there and saying if this thing goes in 43:57.604 --> 44:00.240 there, they're going to dry up everything we've got, they're 44:00.240 --> 44:03.176 going to take all of our water. And you can see out from the 44:03.176 --> 44:05.679 window probably about eight big center pivot irrigation wells 44:05.679 --> 44:08.782 out there. And I said every time a farmer 44:08.782 --> 44:11.885 turns one of those on, he's going to be using more water in 44:11.885 --> 44:14.854 an hour than these guys are going to use in probably a day 44:14.854 --> 44:19.025 or more or closer to a week's time. 44:19.025 --> 44:22.529 But anyway, impact of private wells, this is something that 44:22.529 --> 44:25.031 always an issue, it's an issue with aggregate mining, whatever 44:25.031 --> 44:28.902 you're doing. We've had very good success in 44:28.902 --> 44:31.738 the aggregate industry with companies and especially the 44:31.738 --> 44:34.641 larger companies that come in who'll agree to do a well survey 44:34.641 --> 44:37.410 and basically guarantee the water supply for their closer 44:37.410 --> 44:40.146 neighbors. If something goes wrong that 44:40.146 --> 44:42.916 they cause their water supply to dry up or they contaminate it or 44:42.916 --> 44:46.319 whatever, they'll drill them a new well. 44:46.319 --> 44:49.356 This time of arrangement has really worked very successfully. 44:49.356 --> 44:52.058 We've had a number of cases over in eastern Wisconsin with deep 44:52.058 --> 44:56.930 limestone mines. This has worked quite well. 44:56.930 --> 44:59.466 And when you think about it when a company comes in and is going 44:59.466 --> 45:02.335 to invest millions of dollars in a operation like this, it's a 45:02.335 --> 45:06.239 very small amount to avoid future problems with your 45:06.239 --> 45:10.176 neighbors. Water quality, where runoff and 45:10.176 --> 45:13.346 surface water impact is regulated by the DNR just like 45:13.346 --> 45:16.282 it is for any other kind of construction site or mining 45:16.282 --> 45:19.586 operation. Sand mining really doesn't have 45:19.586 --> 45:21.955 much more potential for groundwater impact than a 45:21.955 --> 45:24.357 limestone quarry or a gravel pit. 45:24.357 --> 45:28.094 It's just maybe a larger scale operation but in terms of any 45:28.094 --> 45:32.298 kind of nasty materials that are used or anything, not much 45:32.298 --> 45:37.003 difference. One issue that's of some concern 45:37.003 --> 45:39.673 is the potential contamination from flocculants that are used 45:39.673 --> 45:42.676 in the settling ponds because one of the things they do is 45:42.676 --> 45:44.911 they recycle a lot of their water and they have to settle 45:44.911 --> 45:47.580 out the fines. So they add flocculants, I think 45:47.580 --> 45:53.086 it's polyacrylamides, and nobody is really quite sure where this 45:53.086 --> 45:55.722 stuff goes or what happens to it. 45:55.722 --> 45:58.258 There's no specific regulations on it. 45:58.258 --> 46:02.762 But there's never been any problems on record with it, and 46:02.762 --> 46:06.332 if you think about it, many of those same chemicals, if you 46:06.332 --> 46:09.769 drink Milwaukee's water, that's the same thing they're using in 46:09.769 --> 46:15.442 that to basically settle out the sediment. 46:18.745 --> 46:23.116 Air quality issues are something that's really gotten to be a big 46:23.116 --> 46:26.720 issue in western Wisconsin. One thing about it, frac sand 46:26.720 --> 46:30.757 requires clean, round, unbroken grains. 46:30.757 --> 46:33.426 Process involves disaggregation and screening. 46:33.426 --> 46:36.563 It's usually done wet rather than any kind of grinding or 46:36.563 --> 46:39.199 crushing operation because the last thing you want to do is 46:39.199 --> 46:41.935 break grains, make them angular, then their not going to meet 46:41.935 --> 46:44.371 your specks. Frac sand plant will produce 46:44.371 --> 46:48.508 probably less angular crystalline silica dust than a 46:48.508 --> 46:51.911 quarry that crushes quartzite, say up at Baraboo or anywhere 46:51.911 --> 46:55.482 like that, or a gravel pit for that matter that dry crushes 46:55.482 --> 47:01.121 fairly coarse cobble material and does it without any 47:01.121 --> 47:05.759 particular dust control measures. 47:05.759 --> 47:11.531 Most plants are just a matter of a lot of the processing, as I 47:11.531 --> 47:14.734 say in the initial screening, is done wet in the first place. 47:14.734 --> 47:18.338 There are standard ways to minimize dust which is very 47:18.338 --> 47:21.508 important, good industry practices. 47:21.508 --> 47:24.678 Such as watering them down haul roads, paving roads, spraying 47:24.678 --> 47:29.382 conveyor belts, even installing wash baths for truck tires. 47:29.382 --> 47:31.718 This is a very successful technique that we've seen used 47:31.718 --> 47:35.422 in a lot of limestone quarries where tracking this dust 47:35.422 --> 47:39.359 material out on to a highway or something and then having 47:39.359 --> 47:41.861 traffic kick it up has caused all kind of problems. 47:41.861 --> 47:44.898 They build a shallow pan, maybe eight inches deep full of water 47:44.898 --> 47:48.468 that the trucks drive through, washes their wheels clean. 47:48.468 --> 47:53.106 They have no problems with it. But the DNR is very fussy in 47:53.106 --> 47:57.143 their air quality standards about controlling fugitive dust, 47:57.143 --> 48:00.246 and complaints about these kinds of things will generally result 48:00.246 --> 48:04.317 in the DNR coming in there and requiring some of these 48:04.317 --> 48:08.388 techniques be used. Most major operators do this as 48:08.388 --> 48:12.425 a matter of routine. For the actual workplace 48:12.425 --> 48:16.396 conditions, Mine Safety Administration and OSHA have 48:16.396 --> 48:22.702 very strict workplace standards and very tight restrictions on 48:22.702 --> 48:27.307 how much particulate silica can be in a cubic meter of air in 48:27.307 --> 48:33.613 the work environment. And if it's that clean at the 48:33.613 --> 48:36.282 site, you're probably not going to have a whole lot of problems 48:36.282 --> 48:40.720 at distances, although there's some probably necessary studies 48:40.720 --> 48:44.391 to be done to collect some of that data. 48:44.391 --> 48:46.659 Operating issues, really blasting, everybody is concerned 48:46.659 --> 48:49.162 about it. It's regulating by the 48:49.162 --> 48:51.398 Department of Commerce. If you've got a complaint, 48:51.398 --> 48:53.600 that's where you go. Blasting is used only to loosen 48:53.600 --> 48:56.069 material. I know of a number of companies 48:56.069 --> 48:58.938 that have used it to break up rock and loosen it a bit and 48:58.938 --> 49:02.208 then they go in there and basically drive a Cat back and 49:02.208 --> 49:04.978 forth a few times and get the stuff broken up enough that they 49:04.978 --> 49:10.350 can get it into the wash plant. But if it's too heavily cemented 49:10.350 --> 49:13.453 to where you've got to use a lot of powder to blast it, it's not 49:13.453 --> 49:17.691 even going to make specks for frac sand. 49:17.691 --> 49:21.895 The traffic operating schedule, road maintenance, these things 49:21.895 --> 49:25.198 are best handle on conditional use permit. 49:25.198 --> 49:28.034 But the problem is that an awful lot of places that mining 49:28.034 --> 49:30.670 companies will come into just because of the convenience have 49:30.670 --> 49:33.773 no zoning. I was talking about a town's 49:33.773 --> 49:38.945 association earlier this year and one of the executives there 49:38.945 --> 49:42.082 was saying a lot of these towns used to be very militant about 49:42.082 --> 49:45.719 this idea of we don't want zoning, we aren't going to have 49:45.719 --> 49:48.421 anybody telling us what we're going to do for our land use. 49:48.421 --> 49:50.924 We're not going to have anybody in here telling us we've got to 49:50.924 --> 49:53.693 keep it all as prime agriculture, whatever. 49:53.693 --> 49:56.296 But then as soon as somebody comes in and proposes a 500-acre 49:56.296 --> 50:00.266 sand mine, they start to sing a little bit different tune. 50:00.266 --> 50:05.839 But anyway, there's generally an opportunity to sit down, 50:05.839 --> 50:08.908 particularly with many of the bigger companies, and make some 50:08.908 --> 50:12.112 negotiations. Town of Howard up in Chippewa 50:12.112 --> 50:14.981 County is very successful at this and there's several others 50:14.981 --> 50:17.550 since that have done that. Reclamation. 50:17.550 --> 50:19.919 People think that these outfits can walk away afterward if 50:19.919 --> 50:22.989 something goes wrong. Reclamation is regulated under 50:22.989 --> 50:26.960 NR 135 in the Department of Natural Resources. 50:26.960 --> 50:30.296 Reclamation plan is subject to public comment and approval. 50:30.296 --> 50:33.433 You've got to have a public hearing associated with it. 50:33.433 --> 50:37.203 It is required to be submitted before you can ever turn a spade 50:37.203 --> 50:40.440 of dirt at one of these operations, and a company has to 50:40.440 --> 50:44.811 post financial assurance in the form of a bond that's an 50:44.811 --> 50:48.882 irrevocable bond. You can't say, well, some other 50:48.882 --> 50:52.085 creditor will take that when they go broke. 50:52.085 --> 50:55.955 No, it has to be specifically set aside for reclamation so 50:55.955 --> 50:59.059 that the county or the local government, whatever, is not 50:59.059 --> 51:01.661 going to get stuck with the cost of cleaning up a site. 51:01.661 --> 51:07.100 That has to be in place before any mining begins. 51:07.100 --> 51:10.503 The good news is that we've had a hundred-year history of sand 51:10.503 --> 51:13.873 mining with very few problems. Most environmental issues can be 51:13.873 --> 51:17.544 dealt with under existing regulations and by using 51:17.544 --> 51:21.815 existing technology and applying best industry standard 51:21.815 --> 51:25.819 practices. Many new mines now, this is the 51:25.819 --> 51:28.855 one that, as I said earlier, is really the problem that's 51:28.855 --> 51:32.592 causing troubles out there, rely on truck transport. 51:32.592 --> 51:34.961 This means traffic and safety issues, potential road 51:34.961 --> 51:38.131 maintenance issues need to be resolved. 51:38.131 --> 51:40.867 We're seeing some real progress among some of the western 51:40.867 --> 51:43.236 counties. There's even some that are 51:43.236 --> 51:46.706 trying to make an assessment on companies to help pay for the 51:46.706 --> 51:49.676 road costs. But the DOT is also very 51:49.676 --> 51:53.913 concerned about this too because it's putting a lot of extra wear 51:53.913 --> 51:57.884 and loading on to state roads. So there's quite a bit being 51:57.884 --> 52:00.653 done about this right now to work the issues out. 52:00.653 --> 52:03.990 Operational issues can usually be resolved by the zoning or by 52:03.990 --> 52:07.460 negotiation. And as new mines come into 52:07.460 --> 52:11.131 production, I think the big thing is that we've just seen a 52:11.131 --> 52:15.301 huge rush in the last year that's basically overwhelmed a 52:15.301 --> 52:18.071 lot of the western counties and they haven't be able to really 52:18.071 --> 52:21.141 keep up with it, but as some of these new mines come into 52:21.141 --> 52:23.877 production, particularly some of the large ones up in the 52:23.877 --> 52:28.048 Chippewa County area, the demand should be met and the pace of 52:28.048 --> 52:31.251 development should slow down in time to work out the remaining 52:31.251 --> 52:34.888 issues. One thing I might add at this 52:34.888 --> 52:37.624 point is that Wisconsin is not the only place that does have 52:37.624 --> 52:40.093 sand that is suitable for frac sand. 52:40.093 --> 52:43.697 There is other sands of lesser qualities, and a number of 52:43.697 --> 52:46.499 companies are pouring a lot of money into developing these 52:46.499 --> 52:49.669 resources in areas like Texas and Oklahoma, which are actually 52:49.669 --> 52:53.373 closer in some cases, transportation wise, to the 52:53.373 --> 52:58.011 actual oil and gas fields. The difference is that most of 52:58.011 --> 53:02.449 those sands are down there around 4,000 PSI or 6,000 PSI 53:02.449 --> 53:06.453 crushing strength, and they can't meet the standards that we 53:06.453 --> 53:09.322 have which go up as high as 12,000 and 14,000 for some of 53:09.322 --> 53:13.827 the best of the sands from the Jordan formation in western 53:13.827 --> 53:16.496 Wisconsin. But there's going to be a big 53:16.496 --> 53:19.632 shake out in the industry, I predict, within the next year or 53:19.632 --> 53:24.804 so because as this comes online, we're going to see, right now 53:24.804 --> 53:30.677 you could go buy a farm out in Trempealeau County, Bubba's 53:30.677 --> 53:33.413 Trucking and Excavating. He's got a back hoe and two or 53:33.413 --> 53:35.849 three dump trucks. He can go out there, start 53:35.849 --> 53:39.386 digging sand out of some farmer's backyard, hauling it 53:39.386 --> 53:43.723 down to Winona, Minnesota, loading it on the Union Pacific 53:43.723 --> 53:47.260 and selling it to a sand company down there that has a loading 53:47.260 --> 53:49.729 facility, and that stuff is going down there and selling for 53:49.729 --> 53:53.199 $300 or $400 a ton which at the wellhead which is pretty 53:53.199 --> 53:55.669 amazing. Once they process it, they can 53:55.669 --> 54:00.140 haul it down there, process it down in Texas and sell it at the 54:00.140 --> 54:02.776 wellhead. Well, as soon as the supply 54:02.776 --> 54:06.212 starts to come up, there's going to be some major changes in the 54:06.212 --> 54:09.215 economics. We've got some huge capacity 54:09.215 --> 54:12.786 being built into some of the big plants like EOG up in Chippewa 54:12.786 --> 54:17.624 Falls, Winn Bay Sands in Trempealeau County, Badger has 54:17.624 --> 54:21.895 put a lot in into expanding their capacity, and I think 54:21.895 --> 54:24.497 we're going to see a settling out of the industry in the next 54:24.497 --> 54:29.269 couple years. So what can we expect? 54:29.269 --> 54:31.571 The sandstone formations in Wisconsin and Minnesota are the 54:31.571 --> 54:34.774 best. Well, that's a fact of life. 54:34.774 --> 54:37.143 It just happened to be because we've got the good stuff that's 54:37.143 --> 54:39.779 available very easily and mineable at the surface. 54:39.779 --> 54:42.649 As long as fracking is the best available technology, which 54:42.649 --> 54:46.119 right now it is for producing previously unrecoverable natural 54:46.119 --> 54:50.390 gas, frac sand mining is going to continue to be a big business 54:50.390 --> 54:52.759 in our region. There's going to be a demand for 54:52.759 --> 54:56.129 it. And I think that I'm not sure 54:56.129 --> 54:59.833 what kind of technology will ever replace it, but the fact 54:59.833 --> 55:04.404 that it has brought us from total dependence to almost 55:04.404 --> 55:09.376 self-sufficiency on natural gas and it's released a tremendous 55:09.376 --> 55:13.513 amount more petroleum that we won't be dependent on foreign 55:13.513 --> 55:17.851 imports, I think there's going to be a demand for it for a 55:17.851 --> 55:21.254 while, at least into the future. Interest in Wisconsin sands 55:21.254 --> 55:25.725 growing but the boom took us by surprise. 55:25.725 --> 55:28.228 Counties were overwhelmed with applications. 55:28.228 --> 55:30.964 The scale is what really has presented problems that we 55:30.964 --> 55:33.433 haven't dealt with before, like I mentioned early, the guy in 55:33.433 --> 55:37.203 Trempealeau County had four or five little stone quarries to 55:37.203 --> 55:41.074 deal with, now he finds he's got 20 sand mines. 55:43.810 --> 55:47.247 But he's actually doing a very good job of dealing with it. 55:47.247 --> 55:50.950 So conclusions that we can come to out of this, I'm going to 55:50.950 --> 55:54.120 wrap it up here. Mother nature didn't give us any 55:54.120 --> 55:56.756 of the oil and gas. We don't have any energy, 55:56.756 --> 55:59.659 basically, in Wisconsin. We're strictly a consumer state. 55:59.659 --> 56:02.662 But we did get the sand that's now exactly what they want and 56:02.662 --> 56:07.867 need to produce what they could never produce before. 56:07.867 --> 56:10.704 There's a few problems in the process, but I think ultimately 56:10.704 --> 56:14.874 that will get worked out. It produces material very 56:14.874 --> 56:18.945 efficiently. You think about back when I took 56:18.945 --> 56:22.615 petroleum geology, you used to hear that we were only 56:22.615 --> 56:25.552 recovering something like 20% of the potential from a particular 56:25.552 --> 56:30.090 oil field. So we're really increasing our 56:30.090 --> 56:34.461 efficiency and wasting less fuel. 56:34.461 --> 56:38.231 Frac sand mining should really be continued as a strong a 56:38.231 --> 56:41.034 stable industry as long as there's a demand for 56:41.034 --> 56:45.538 hydrocarbons and we wish to reduce our dependence on 56:45.538 --> 56:48.375 imports. And I think that's a goal that 56:48.375 --> 56:51.644 everybody has. We would like to reduce our 56:51.644 --> 56:54.581 dependence on hydrocarbons, but I think it's going to take us a 56:54.581 --> 56:57.484 number of years, realistically, before we can really wean 56:57.484 --> 57:00.086 ourselves completely away from it. 57:00.086 --> 57:03.189 But I think the current boom is going to settle down as supply 57:03.189 --> 57:06.526 catches up with demand. And this is going to happen, it 57:06.526 --> 57:12.899 may happen as a pretty big event at the time because I think 57:12.899 --> 57:15.835 we're going to see a lot of these little guys who are 57:15.835 --> 57:18.238 producing, small producers out there, either being swallowed up 57:18.238 --> 57:20.774 by the larger companies or they're going to be put out of 57:20.774 --> 57:23.777 business because you can't afford the truck haul of hauling 57:23.777 --> 57:28.448 this and paying for diesel fuel to haul this stuff by truck when 57:28.448 --> 57:34.287 you have some large companies who had their own rail siding, 57:34.287 --> 57:38.191 own their own cars and locomotives, they can basically 57:38.191 --> 57:41.294 spot a 60-car unit train on there that the railroad just 57:41.294 --> 57:43.630 comes and picks up and ships out. 57:43.630 --> 57:46.332 And that's the way you get your best rates on shipping. 57:46.332 --> 57:50.904 And any of this kind of stuff, the one big factor in there is 57:50.904 --> 57:54.708 transportation. Efficient producers are going to 57:54.708 --> 57:57.510 be some of the larger companies that have been in the business a 57:57.510 --> 57:59.846 long time. We've got about three types of 57:59.846 --> 58:02.215 companies. We've got the old time sand 58:02.215 --> 58:05.819 companies like Unimin, US Silica, Badger Mining, Gelhar, 58:05.819 --> 58:08.221 these people know what they're doing. 58:08.221 --> 58:10.457 They've been in the business a long time. 58:10.457 --> 58:12.992 We've got the carpetbaggers who've come in who are, in many 58:12.992 --> 58:16.129 cases, oil companies who've tried to cut the middle man out, 58:16.129 --> 58:19.866 and all they want to do is get their own source of sand. 58:19.866 --> 58:22.535 They may or may not stay in that business, and then we've got all 58:22.535 --> 58:25.905 the small guys out there who are making a killing right now 58:25.905 --> 58:29.042 because of the high price for sand, but they're going to be 58:29.042 --> 58:33.146 put out, I think, of business by the lack of access to rail. 58:33.146 --> 58:36.216 The survivors are going to be the ones that can ship the 58:36.216 --> 58:39.386 product efficiently, and that's going to be one of the major 58:39.386 --> 58:42.455 factors. So with that, I will conclude. 58:42.455 --> 58:44.791 [APPLAUSE]