Lee Bergquist

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

An environmental group filed a petition with federal regulators this week objecting to the Department of Natural Resources’ approval of an air permit for sand mining facilities in western Wisconsin because the group said the DNR’s analysis fell short of federal requirements.

Midwest Environmental Advocates, an environmental law firm, asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reject air permits for Superior Silica Sands, Fort Worth, Texas, because the state allowed the company to expand operations without evaluating the potential of emissions of ultrafine air particles.

The air particles can cause respiratory and heart problems. MEA said the air permit approved by the Department of Natural Resources violates the federal Clean Air Act.

The petition is the most recent action by the Madison-based group to highlight what it claims is a pattern of weak enforcement by the DNR on air and water pollution matters.

Among others, MEA is representing the Ho-Chunk Nation, which has trust land in sand mining regions.

MEA is questioning the DNR’s oversight of air permits of plants in Arland in Barron County and Clayton in Polk County, which refine sand used in the oil industry.

Sand mining plays a key role in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — a process of drilling that uses sand, chemicals and water to extract oil that was once considered too difficult to tap.

The sand granules of western Wisconsin have the size and shape desired by the petroleum industry, and as fracking has grown, so has sand mining. The industry has retrenched with the drop in oil prices — Superior Silica announced layoffs in March of 69 employees — but many industry experts are expecting a rebound. Superior is a unit of publicly traded Emerge Energy Services.

In its petition, MEA cited the DNR's approval of an air permit this summer for the plant in Arland. The EPA has objected to the DNR's review process to of sand particles that are are 2.5 microns and smaller. A human hair is about 70 microns.

Known as PM 2.5, the tiny particles are byproducts of vehicle exhaust, power plants, wood burning and some industrial processes. The particles can penetrate deeply into the lungs and can increase the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma.

The DNR has told the sand mining industry that mechanical processes such as crushing and grinding are not sources of these ultrafine particles.

But a guidance document issued by the EPA in May 2014 says air permits for PM 2.5 must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

“Therefore,” the EPA told the DNR in August 2015, “a blanket PM 2.5 exemption can not be given to exempt such a broad range of source types from permitting requirements.”

Genevieve Damico, chief of the air permits section of the EPA’s regional office in Chicago, told state officials in a letter that, “overall, EPA does not believe that a broad statement that mechanical processes do not emit PM 2.5 is accurate or appropriate.”

DNR spokesman Jim Dick declined to comment because he said the agency had just learned of the petition and had not had time to review it.

“The DNR is ignoring the presence and cumulative impacts of fine particulate matter from facilities including frac sand mines under its new policy,” Sarah Geers, an attorney with MEA said in a statement.

“Despite repeated objections by the EPA and groups like MEA, the DNR is ignoring its responsibilities to protect our air under federal law.”

The economic benefits of sand mining have been trumpeted in western Wisconsin. But the industry has also generated opposition. One worry by environmentalists and some residents living near mines and processing plants has been the potential effects of air pollution.

In September 2011, the DNR and the Department of Health Services said in a report that they found little conclusive evidence of possible negative health effects from crystalline silica, a component of sand, as sand mining was taking off in the state.

But in January 2015, the DNR said it would conduct a new analysis of the health and environmental effects of sand mining industry, and whether the industry is being properly regulated.