S t o r y
How
would you feel if our national energy policy put you and your
neighbors in a battle with a multi-billion
dollar hedge fund? What if you discovered that the woods, hills and fields where you grew up were the focus of a new industry--an industry based on taking the land away, piece by piece?
A
year ago, an oil company bought a tract of land in Goodhue County, MN
for five times its
normal
value. Neighbors, including members of my family, learned that
Windsor Permian, LLC planned to build a frac sand mine. The prospect
of an open-pit mine in the neighborhood led to the formation of an
opposition group, a series of public meetings, and a temporary county
moratorium on silica mining. Frac sand mining in Goodhue County has
been suspended until next fall, when officials will decide whether to
restrict or condone the new mines.
Across
the river, Wisconsin's lax zoning laws make it a prime target, and
new silica mines are already in operation. I'm a filmmaker, so I
researched the issue and began to interview people who live near some
of them. They told me stories: 100 semi trucks a day, cancer-causing
dust, plummeting property values, blasting, high volume wells--a
catalog of complaints and concerns that surprised me with its variety
and intensity. Over the course of the summer, I made twenty short
films about frac sand mining and posted them on YouTube. see them here
As
my YouTube videos gained an audience, people started to contact me
with new stories. I visited other counties, and heard about shady
business deals, environmental destruction, and the growing rift
between friends on either side of the issue. In some places, frac
sand money has split entire communities. Old friends won't talk to
each other. And for every new millionaire, a group of neighbors are
left wondering if they can cope with pits where they had hills, noise
in place of solitude and dust that might ruin their children's lungs,
ten years after the mines have closed and the limited liability
companies have faded and gone.
"The
Price of Sand" will be a documentary about what the frac sand
industry is doing to the region where I grew up. We'll talk to local
people and we'll also dig for information, interviewing experts and
officials. By next summer, we plan to have an hour-long documentary film.
Jim Tittle, director
Our Goal
Our IndieGoGo goal is to raise $5600 in 56 days. This amount will pay for our most basic expense -- travel to small towns where the frac sand mining boom is happening. We can beg and borrow to get the rest, but gas, food and lodging are hard costs.
No matter what PLEASE help us get the word out! How can you do this?
"Like" our Facebook Page
Watch our videos on our YouTube Page
And keep up with our Official Website
