Fairmount Santrol is laying off 55 employees at three locations in western Wisconsin, according to filings with the state Department of Workforce Development.
The cuts affect plants in Menomonie (N5628 580th St.), Hager City (N1464 770th St.) and Maiden Rock (W3302 Highway 35 S.). Thirty-nine were laid off in Maiden Rock, 13 in Menomonie and three in Hager City. Seven were salaried positions, and 48 were hourly.
“The layoff has been prompted by organizational restructuring and a reduction in business operations,” the company said in the filings. Fairmount Santrol said the duration of the layoffs is not known but could be permanent.
Chesterland, Ohio-based Fairmount Santrol provides sand and sand-based products used by oil and gas exploration and production companies.
Remember that one political party wants to kill of fracking, and the jobs that go with it, completely.
I suspect you’d become slightly more concerned about the externalities if the frack sand was being mined in your county.
Owen would not be too concerned, considering he chose to move to a county with 14 gravel mines currently under permit. He also chose to reside in an area of the city that once had a cement mix plant nearby, due to the proximity of local sources of sand and gravel. Two operations are contingent to the City of West Bend. A former mine now serves as a city park. If you go to Google Maps, there is a “satellite” view – if you zoom in you will see evidence of mining currently going on. Same thing for Waukesha County. In Washington County, Wissota Sand & Gravel by Richfield currently spans 1.2 Miles. Cedar Lake Sand & Gravel by Slinger spans 1.6 miles. In later years, mining in Washington County has been impacted by residential development and loss of railway access, but in the areas where that is not an issue, the mines are thriving.
I am quite familiar with the geology of Wisconsin as well as the quarries in Owen’s area. (What do you mean by “mine”?) Perhaps you can tell us how frack sand mining differs from quarrying when it comes to dust, water usage, trucking, and rail.
We don’t have to kill fracking — the unseen hand of Owen’s beloved free market is already killing it. This isn’t the first short lived boom bubble in Wisconsin (see the lumber industry in Wisconsin)
Politics isn’t killing fracking. Cheap foreign oil is. And frack sand operations are in trouble due to over supply, not regulation, as walkers administration has taken local control out of the siting process, and neutered DNR as far as enforcement.