Allamakee County Protectors founding member Robert Nehman never considered himself much of an activist, yet he and his group of fellow grassroots advocates are being recognized by the Sierra Club for their successful fight to keep frac sand mining out of their backyards.
The Allamakee County Protectors weren’t initially created as a general environmental organization. Instead, they were created in response to a specific threat posed by an industry tied to the burgeoning fracking phenomenon.
Frac sand mining has boomed in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa — all areas rich in silica sand.
The sand, often found under layers of the area’s scenic bluffs, is a critical component to the oil and gas fracking process. In order for a well to be fracked, a combination of water, chemicals and silica sand is injected into the earth, where it’s able to break through to oil and gas previously inaccessible.
Silica sand is touted by the oil and gas industry to be like beach sand, yet that’s not the case. The U.S. Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA) acknowledges the exposure to fine silica particles as the cause of silicosis and lung cancer, both potentially fatal diseases.
While standing up against an industry that threatened the natural beauty of their home and the well-being of the county’s residences, members of the Allamakee County Protectors also stood in allegiance with those around the country who found themselves fighting off the oil and gas industry, which has quickly moved into residential areas.
Based on the Protectors’ success and determination in standing up against the industry, the Sierra Club announced the Allamakee County Protectors as recipients of the Grassroots Award, an achievement that will be recognized Oct. 5 at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge.
Grassroots success
Robert Nehman is the founding member of the Allamakee County Protectors, a group whose journey began on Oct. 1, 2012. It was on that day that Nehman learned land within eyesight of his rural Iowa home was being slated for a silica sand mining operation.
Minnesota Sands, LLC had started the application process to mine the bluffs Nehman and his family had grown to love. The project was slated to begin less than a mile down a gravel road — a site he and his family chose to build their new home on, mainly because of the serenity that area offered.
Nehman didn’t know then what he knows now, but he knew the impending project wouldn’t be a bonus for his family and neighbors.
He began researching the industry and came across a laundry list of concerns — air quality, health risks and heavy truck use were among the top of issues. The impact of widespread silica sand mining on those living near plant operations is unchartered territory, in terms of health research, yet enough evidence exists to cause those living in silica sand heavy areas to be concerned.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has identified exposure to silica sand as a health hazard for those working in the mining industry. OSHA has specific legal guidelines for those working in the industry, based on widespread and accepted scientific evidence that it causes silicosis and lung cancer.
Nehman and his neighbors know it’s hazardous — and they’re wary of allowing their children and themselves to be exposed to silica particles on a daily basis.
Nehman may have started the movement, but he wasn’t alone in his accidental activism. At the first town hall meeting regarding the project proposal, they were joined by 200 fellow community members, all standing behind the notion that the industry had no place in their backyard.
After the show of opposition, Minnesota Sands, LLC withdrew its proposal for the mine, yet the Protectors knew the withdrawal wouldn’t mark the end of the battle. Along with the support of their neighbors, they lobbied the county board to issue a moratorium, effective through June 2014, on the industry.
The moratorium is now allowing county board members to assess the frac sand industry as it more information becomes available, particularly in neighboring Wisconsin. In a June interview with Mint Press News, Allamakee County Supervisor Dennis Koenig said particular concern is being given to transportation issues and possible interruptions to the area’s scenic beauty.
“I’m concerned about the folks in Allamakee County, if there’d be a burden to bare — with road repair, when you change the scenery … all of these things need to be addressed,” Koenig told Mint Press News. “I don’t want to see our taxpayers have to pay for these things.”
Keeping up the fight
The moratorium was a victory for the Protectors, yet even that wasn’t enough to give its members time to relax. The Protectors are still calling for an all-out ban — and say they won’t rest until they get it.
The group is running a campaign to gain signatures in a petition directed at Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R). As of Sept. 17, they had collected 2,353 of their 3,300-signature goal.
“Please do not allow highly destructive industrial frac sand mining to destroy the beautiful and highly productive rural landscapes of Allamakee County, Iowa, simply to provide specific kinds of silica sand for ill-advised fracking (hydraulic fracturing), elsewhere in the world,” the petition states.
The petition goes on to use Wisconsin and Minnesota as examples of what Allamakee County residents want to keep out of their community.
“No frac sand mine in nearby [Wisconsin] and [Minnesota] has ever been reclaimed or restored with vegetation,” it states. “This ‘boom and bust’ industry benefits out-of-state corporations enormously, a very few local landowners ‘might’ gain financially, but all taxpayers and entire local populations and impoverished, and left with the ugly and useless landscape that remains.”
While lobbying at the state level, they’re also keeping an eye on Reilly Construction and the company’s efforts to rezone a railroad spur near Black Hawk Bluff, just down the road from Nehman’s home. While Reilly Construction has denied the rezoning would allow the company to transport silica sand from Minnesota to the Iowa site, residents aren’t buying it. According to the county’s temporary moratorium, transporting silica sand in the area is prohibited.
Why do they care so much?
Residents of Iowa’s Allamakee County don’t exactly live there for the bustling nightlife scene.
At a recent visit to a frac sand mine south of McGregor, Iowa, Allamakee County Protector member Jeff Abbas explained the reason behind his passion to keep the sand industry out of his community.
The Pattison Sand Mine site revealed the process by which the mining industry extracts sand from the earth. Simply put, they bulldoze the bluff to remove and access the silica sand.
“This is why we’re fighting this,” Abbas told Mint Press News while staring at the site of a half-removed bluff at the Pattison Sand Mine site. “It took hundreds of thousands of years to build this landscape the way it is.”
Abbas, who lives in the midst of Allamakee County bluffs, is an organic farmer. While the area he chose to call home serves his livelihood well, the beauty of the landscape and the tranquility of living in an area that hardly sees traffic is the main selling point.
Potential blufftop removal near the land he considered home was the last straw for Nehman and his family, whose home is surrounded by bluffs.
“I don’t even look at myself as a protester or activist,” he told Mint Press News during a June interview in his home. “I’m a concerned citizen who has a stake in this.”