The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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December 9, 2012

Your View: Oppose expansion of sand mine

Ashley Keul, Spicer

I am a former resident of St. Peter and I am heart-broken and deeply concerned about the proposed expansion of the vast Unimin open-pit frac sand mine in Kasota.

The market analyses provided by major oil companies make frac sand mining look mighty alluring. But it is only in the short-term. The energy industry is not trending toward more expensive extraction of deeply deposited finite resources. That is a dead end.

Instead, the industry is trending toward clean, renewable energies. Look at the goals of the State of Minnesota through legislation, like the Clean Air Act, to achieve energy independence with clean, renewable energy sources.

Frac sand mining does not fit into our goals for a healthy and sustainable community, state and world. Consider our fragile watershed and Minnesota River ecology. Consider the impact on all the life which currently inhabits the “proposed site.”

True native prairies cannot be purchased with paper money, mined and then “re-planted.”

I strongly urge you to take a moment to think about how this makes you feel. How this myopic, greed-driven extension of a vast open-pit mine into your backyard, into the few bio-diverse and endangered native prairies we have left in this great state, makes you feel.

Alternative B (no action) is the most responsible option we can take as citizens of this Earth. We have a responsibility to be stewards of land that supports many, many forms of life of which we, as humans, are only one.

There is a 10-day public comment period which ends at 4:30 p.m. today.

Your voice matters. Please take a moment right now to submit your comment to Le Sueur Co. Planning & Zoning Administrator, Kathy Brockway:

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