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Frac Sand Mining and Community Economic Development

As the national economy struggles to recover from the "Great Recession" of 2008-2009 the high price of oil, and to a lesser extent natural gas, has created economic opportunities for many rural communities. The process of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", to remove oil and gas from rock formations has created "mining booms" in large parts of the western Appalachian Mountains (the Marcellus fields in the Appalachian Basin) and western North Dakota and eastern Montana (the Bakken fields in the Williston Basin) to name a few. While there is limited possibility for the extraction of shale deposited oil and gas for Wisconsin, the engineering of the extraction process requires sand with specific characteristics that is in abundant supply in many parts of Wisconsin. The surge in demand for this "frac sand" has created what appear to be significant economic opportunities for the western and central parts of Wisconsin.