ARE
FRACKING SAND MINERS FAILING TO CHECK FOR NABOKOV'S ENDANGERED
BUTTERFLY?
Posted
on January 31, 2012 by Kate Golden - 4 Comments
‘They
have to let us know they’re there,’ Wisconsin DNR says
Much
of the remaining habitat of the endangered Karner blue butterfly
overlaps
with Wisconsin’s sandstone deposits.
By
Kate Golden
Wisconsin
Center for Investigative Journalism
In
the sand barrens of Wisconsin lives an endangered blue butterfly
[discovered,
described and named by Vladimir Nabokov], and Its range
overlaps
almost perfectly with the sand that’s become a lucrative part
of
a boom in natural gas drilling.
And
to kill a Karner blue without a permit violates federal law.
But
of the dozens of frac sand companies that have descended upon the
area,
just one, Unimin, has applied to the state Department of Natural
Resources
to be able to legally destroy Karner blues in its
operations,
according to David Lentz, who coordinates the agency’s
Karner
blue butterfly habitat conservation plan.
And
only four companies have contacted the agency’s Bureau of
Endangered
Resources directly.
“They
have to let us know they’re there,” Lentz said. “And they haven’t
been.”
His
concern is that companies’ due diligence may not be perfectly
diligent.
“Are
they in such a rush to get to the gold that they’re not going to
consider
their environmental or regulatory responsibilities, and take
that
risk?” Lentz asked.
The
Karner blue is just one wrinkle in the state’s struggle with this
fast-moving
industry, which has homed in on Wisconsin for the quality
of
its sand. In the drilling process nicknamed “fracking,” sand, water
and
chemicals are blasted into wells, creating fissures in the rock
and
freeing hard-to-reach pockets of oil and natural gas.
“The
‘sand boom’ took us by surprise,” noted state senior geologist
Bruce
Brown in an October presentation. “Many counties were
overwhelmed
by mining applications, and the scale of mining has
presented
problems we haven’t dealt with before.”
The
best sand for fracking is shown here in red in this slide from an
October
2011 frac sand presentation by state senior geologist Bruce
Brown.
While
the state Department of Transportation has been studying the
effects
of transporting all the sand on the state’s roads and rail
lines,
the DNR has devoted more staff to permits and enforcement. Two
staffers
are working just on frac sand air pollution permits, two more
jobs
have been devoted to enforcement, and since September, staffer
Tom
Woletz’s entire job has been coordinating frac sand permits.
As
of mid-January, the DNR had counted about 60 mines, 32 plants
either
operating or being built, and 20 more proposed mines — more
than
double the 41 mines or plants the Wisconsin Center for
Investigative
Journalism counted in mid-July. The agency
conservatively
estimated the state’s capacity at more than 12 million
tons
of sand a year.
Woletz
said the agency can’t say exactly how many companies are out
there
and what their status is. They have no centralized industry
organization,
and they are “very competitive and very secretive” when
buying
land, he said.
“I
don’t know that we’re trying to keep a handle on where they all
are,”
Woletz said. “Our main issue is making sure that they have the
proper
permits they need.”
The
DNR on Tuesday issued a 43-page summary of the industry’s
processes,
their potential environmental impacts and applicable
regulations.
DOCUMENT:
Possible environmental impacts of sand mining, Wisconsin
Department
of Natural Resources Jan. 31 white paper
Overall,
Woletz said, the industry is “fairly well funded and they are
receptive
to doing what they need to do as far as permitting and
compliance.
But they want their permits at business speed,” — that is,
“tomorrow.”
He,
too, has learned a lot about Karners since he started this detail
in
September.
‘The
people’s insect’
It’s
no coincidence that wherever there’s frac sand, the Karner blue
may
be nearby. This quarter-size, gossamer-blue butterfly lives much
of
its life on wild lupine, whose blue-purple flowers are a common
sight
in Wisconsin’s sand barrens.