Companies fined $26,000 for frac sand boreholes in Town of Howard

By LeAnn R. Ralph

TOWN OF HOWARD  —  Northern Sands LLC and Ahlgrimm Explosives Company, Inc. have been fined a total of $26,000 for failing to properly abandon 25 frac sand boreholes in the Town of Howard.

Judge Rhonda L. Lanford in Dane County Circuit Court ordered the judgement against Northern Sands and Ahlgrimm in June in response to a complaint filed by the State of Wisconsin.

Northern Sands was fined $17,000, and Ahlgrimm was fined $9,000.

Northern Sands, a nonmetallic mining company out of Winona, Minnesota, is proposing to mine approximately 2,000 acres in the Town of Howard a few miles southeast of Colfax.

Ahlgrimm Explosives, a drilling and explosives company out of Appleton, drilled the boreholes as part of the process of locating frac sand in the Town of Howard.

Wisconsin Administrative Code requires drillholes, defined as a hole deeper than it is wide that is not intended to provide water, to be properly abandoned within 90 days. Once the drillhole is properly abandoned, a report must be filed with the state Department of Natural Resources within 30 days.

Drillholes can be filled with neat cement grout, concrete (sand-cement) grout, clay slurry, or a sodium bentonite slurry. Powdered bentonite also can be added to cement grout.

All together, 25 boreholes were drilled into a bedrock formation, ranging in depth from 20 feet to 90 feet, on land owned by J.R. and R. Kiesow; L.D. Jensen and James R. Jensen; A.M. and J.A. Grossmeier; R.W. and T.E. Schroeder; L.D. Jenson and J.A. Amundson; Jensen Lands LLC; E.P. and S.L. Buck; Olav and Gail Svee Trust; D.W. and C.K. Schwartz; R.G. and L.M. Christoffel; R. J. Anderson; D.R. Rothbauer D.R. Acres LLC; D.R. and M.M Rothbauer; R.J. Anderson; R. and K.M. Rasmussen Trust; and J.R. and N.T. Bethmann.

Agreement 

According to the complaint, “Ahlgrimm entered into a handshake agreement with Northern Sands in which Northern Sands would abandon the exploratory drillholes Ahlgrimm drilled for Northern Sands.”

Between November 1, 2013, and July 1, 2014, Northern Sands abandoned the 25 exploratory drillholes that Ahlgrimm had drilled by backfilling the holes with sand removed from the drillholes when they were drilled.

Instead of filling the drillholes from the bottom up with concrete or bentonite, Northern Sands put less than two feet of bentonite at the surface of two of the 25 drillholes.

In addition, Ahlgrimm did not make sure that Northern Sands properly abandoned the 25 exploratory drillholes.

Northern Sands failed as well to file abandonment reports with the DNR for the 25 boreholes within 30 days.

Between May and July of 2015, Ahlgrimm re-drilled the 25 boreholes, and American Engineering Testing, under contract with a consultant who was under contract with Northern Sands, abandoned the 25 boreholes Ahlgrimm had re-drilled.

On August 17, 2015, American Engineering Testing filed with the DNR the proper abandonment reports for the 25 drillholes.

Deadlines

According to the judgement, Northern Sands has until October 1, 2016, to pay the $17,000 in fines.

Ahlgrimm Explosives Company has until August 1, 2016, to pay the $9,000 in fines.

Since the proposal was first made for what is known as the Albertville Valley sand mine, the Howard Town Board has expressed concern about which company would actually be developing and operating the sand mine.

Last fall, the Howard Town Board learned that Paul Van Eijl of Northern Sands had signed the Chippewa County mine reclamation permit as the president of Northern Sands for the Albertville Valley sand mine.

Members of the Howard Town Board have said in the past that the town board would not issue a nonmetallic mining license for the Albertville Valley sand mine if Van Eijl was involved in any part of the operation.

Chippewa County land conservation approved a nonmetallic mine reclamation permit for Northern Sands on November 18, 2015.

The Town of Howard is an unzoned township but does have a mine licensing ordinance.

The Albertville Valley sand mine also would include a loading and shipping facility.

Town board members and residents in the area have been under the impression that Red Flint Group would be the actual operator of the proposed frac sand mine.

Because the price of oil has decreased, it is not presently economically feasible to produce oil through hydraulic fracturing, which has reduced the demand for the frac sand mined in Wisconsin.

Many of the frac sand mines in Chippewa County and Barron County have shut down and have either temporarily or permanently laid off mine workers.