Still time to voice opinions on Winona County frac-sand mining

Public comments being taken through 4:30 p.m. Tuesday

If you have anything to say about the Winona County frac-sand mine, Tuesday is the final day to write in comments.

Last week, a public hearing featured many speakers with the Land Stewardship Project, on how frac-sand mines are destroying communities.

“People are seeing the kinds of devastation that’s happening in Wisconsin, to rural communities, where frac-sand mining is harming the land and the water, people’s safety on the roads and quality of life,” Johanna Ruprecht with the project said. 

Public comments on the proposed changes to the Winona County zoning ordinance can be emailed through 4:30 p.m. Tuesday to Maria Baer: [email protected]

Of the 57 comments (as of Sunday) listed on this page, only the following two supported the frac-sand mining:

While this letter from Union Pacific is worried the proposed ordinance affecting rail operations:

Meanwhile, the other 54 public comments supported a complete ban of frac-sand mining, including one from the Winona State University student senate:

Rupprecht says that some have proposed a compromise that limits the size of the mines, but it has no teeth. 

“The proposal that some people are claiming that is a compromise, it was put forward by the planning commission (and) would really just give this industry a foothold,” Rupprecht explained. “It would start out as six mines at a time but, what we’ve seen over and over again, is the industry starts out smaller and they get bigger and expand.”

The county board is set to make a decision on a proposal to ban the activity in the next few weeks and the support for a ban appears to be growing.

“Ever since we launched this campaign, people have just been coming out of the woodwork from all over the county,” Rupprecht said. “People that had never before had any connection to our organization are signing on in different ways to support the ban.”

Full text of the proposed amendments are available here.