Land Stewardship Project

Land Stewardship Project
  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • Long Range Plan
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
      • LSP Board Committees
    • LSP Steering Committees & Working Groups
    • Contact Us
    • Past LSP Projects
    • Employment & Volunteer Opportunities
    • LSP Publications
    • Financial Statements
  • The Latest
    • Community Care
    • Songs for the Soil
    • CSA Farm Directory
    • Upcoming Events
    • News
      • News Releases
      • Media Contacts
      • LSP in the News
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • Land Stewardship Letter
    • LIVE-WIRE Sign-up
    • Myth Busters
    • Fact Sheets
    • Farm Crisis Resources
  • For Farmers & Landowners
    • Farmland Clearinghouse
    • New Farmers
      • Farm Beginnings Class
      • Journeyperson Course
      • Farm Dreams
      • Accessing Farmland
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Beginning/Retiring Farmer Tax Credit
      • Beginning Farmer Profiles
    • Retiring Farmers & Landowners
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Farm Transition Planning Course
      • Conservation Leases
      • Beginning/Retiring Farmer Tax Credit
      • Land Transition Tools
      • Transition Stories
    • Soil Health
      • Cover Crops
      • Grazing
      • No-till
      • Microbiology
      • Soil Builders’ Network
      • Soil Builders’ E-Letters
      • Soil Health Steering Committee Members
    • Cropping Systems Calculator
    • Conservation Leases
  • Creating Change
    • Community-Based Food Systems
    • Policy Campaigns
      • Soil Health & Climate Change
      • Healthcare
      • Factory Farms
        • Anti-Competitiveness & Price Gouging
        • LSP Powerline Story Center
      • Federal Policy
        • A Farm Bill For Us
      • State Policy
        • MN Farm, Food & Climate Funding
      • Developing Leadership
    • Justice & Stewardship
    • Organizational Stewardship
    • Building People Power
  • Get Involved
    • Take Action!
    • Upcoming Events
    • Land Stewardship Action Fund
    • Connect with LSP
      • Stay Connected
      • Join, Donate, or Renew Today!
      • Shop
      • Employment & Volunteer Opportunities
      • Legacy Giving
    • Network with LSP Members
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Soil Health
    • Farmland Clearinghouse
  • Join, Donate, or Renew Today!
  • Stay Connected
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
Search
More...

Frac Sand’s Wild Refugees

By Johanna Rupprecht
March 20, 2015

Share

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • email

There’s a farm near Hixton, Wis., (Jackson County) that is in the process of being destroyed by being turned into a frac sand mine. I would say it’s a least a couple of hundred acres. It’s at the intersection of Highway 95 and Green (but not for long!) Acres Road.

Some excavation has begun, there are berms and fences up all over in what used to be cropland or pasture and I assume the mining will go all the way back into the wooded hills behind the farm. This is a few miles down the road from another mine that’s been in operation for a few years, the one I wrote about last year, which looks worse every time I see it.

When my mom and I were driving home last Sunday the night after my grandpa died, there was a flock of at least 25 wild turkeys wandering around on one of the berms at the new mine. They looked so lost and confused. It was unbelievably sad. I said to my mother, “What are they supposed to eat — sand?” It really brought home to me the total lack of a land ethic on the part of the people who are responsible for frac sand mining.

I thought of the harsh words my grandpa—a lifelong conservationist who instilled a deep love of the natural world in all his family—would have had for them if he had seen this, and I thought of southeastern Minnesota farmer Bob Christie’s words of disbelief at what the mining company that tried to buy his land was willing to write off as “overburden.”

The fact that there are people who just don’t care about anything or anyone that lives on the land, and don’t care what they destroy in the name of profits, is so hard for me to really wrap my mind around, but that’s what we’re up against.

Johanna Rupprecht is an LSP organizer based in southeastern Minnesota. She can be reached at 507-523-3366 or jrupprecht@landstewardshipproject.org. For more information on LSP’s work related to the frac sand mining issue, click here.

Category: Blog

NULL

Montevideo

111 North First Street
Montevideo, MN 56265

(320) 269-2105

Lewiston

180 E. Main Street
Lewiston, MN 55952

(507) 523-3366

Minneapolis

821 E. 35th Street #200
Minneapolis, MN 55407

(612) 722-6377

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Land Stewardship Project. All rights reserved.

https://landstewardshipproject.org/frac-sands-wild-refugees