Will you be my neighbor?
My older sister Emily and her husband Joe are currently battling frac(k) sand mining companies from turning their dream house into a nightmare, by becoming a neighbor and beginning to mine, process and haul the sand used for natural gas fracturing. When they first moved back to Wisconsin 14 years ago after three years together in central Illinois, they moved in with my parents, found and bought their 40 acres in the country, and started building their "forever house".
This began a very long journey, since they did much of the work themselves. My sister had helped work her way through grad school in IL, where she'd followed husband #1, by designing kitchens at a big box store. She designed the entire house herself, w/no professional plans, her blueprints were reviewed by an architect who apparently had no changes. In the early years, when I'd visit from Chicago, I'd do fun things like stain miles of woodwork. It's an open-floor plan green and ADA walk-out ranch with clever features like radiant heating in their hardwood floors and a playhouse connecting their kids' Jack and Jill bedrooms.
It was six whole years after they started, after I got engaged, that they would finally decide they were done enough to get pregnant. The fact that their marriage has survived is some kind of miracle, though her relationship with my dad, who helped them on the house in the early days, unfortunately did not. She's been estranged from him for a dozen years now. Ironically, her plans were/are to live like him, off the land (w/an enormous garden, chickens, etc.), and to some extent off the grid. This part of the state actually looks like Kentucky (since it was missed by the glaciers), lots of rolling hills (great for sledding) and lovely curving country roads.
We have a bit of an odd relationship Emily and me. We are very different, I can't even list all the ways. We really have little in common other than that we are family. She was particularly awful to me when we were trying to have our family, and not because she was building hers, it was just a continuation of much of my interactions w/her, and all I can do is shrug at her intentionally getting pregnant with her #4 the week immediately following my news that our twins had stuck, and that she chose the day my grandma died (when we all returned home from the hospital) the next month to announce that she was expecting again. For someone surrounded by people who avoid the spotlight, she sure does fight (god knows who) for it.
So when she called me recently and we got to talking, it was actually the first time she'd told me herself about what was happening to her life as she knew it. DH had heard about the mines via family at Christmas, but only through the grapevine and we didn't know the status of what was happening.
Coincidentally, what they needed in their fight to keep the mines and the sand processing from filling their (and their children's) air with carcinogens, their dark country sky with 24 hour lights and noise, and narrow roads with sand trucks was my dear husband. They had been unable to secure a transportation engineer anywhere in the state (or even nearby MN) to analyze the situation and testify to the impact the mines and the transport would have on their little rural Amish buggy community because the industry had tied them all up (w/retainers and conflicts), so that they would not have any opposition to their plans. The proposed mines, processing, and conveyors are directly next to and across from their home, land owned by people who obviously don't live on the land.
Tonight they and DH are all up in the north woods fighting "big oil" (her words, so who knows she may someday go back to progressive from ultra-conservative...), and their bid for a permit to proceed with the mines. My mother not so secretly hopes they end up just cutting their losses, as they would have/choose to if the mines break ground, and move to the city. With frac sand mining in full force, the sandy soil in that area of the state now makes any undeveloped area at very high risk to being converted to a mine. Crazy stuff, stay tuned...
Update: Well, the news is good! They are another one of those very rare red dots above. Hopefully the county will stick to their guns... :)
