#fractracker

Since 2006, approximately 5,000 acres of forest and farmland in Wisconsin have been compromised by sand mining in Wisconsin with equal or greater amounts in Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan. The sand is shipped* to oil and gas wells around the U.S. use in the ‘fracking’ process. Roughly 3.5-5. thousand tons of sand are used to ‘stimulate’ a single well and this demand is increasing by 15-20% per year. Furthermore, 38% of all silica sand tonnage and an astonishing 79% of revenue has been generated since the fracking revolution took hold in the late 1990s in The Barnett Shale of Texas and neighboring shale basins. via FracTracker: https://www.fractracker.org/

A major funder of Marcellus Shale research pulled out of a controversial project at the University of Pittsburgh recently. The Heinz Endowments told Pitt's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities not to use its funding to pursue Marcellus work.