I'm Not ready to make nice...

wow...who knew?

There was a few years of time they were sucking lake fulls of good drinking water out of the ground around here and had water trucks were running 24/7 to supply and pump into the oil and gas fields south of I20.

I notice one of those companies listed is called Alpine Silica.
Is this silica sand they're mining? I assume not as here our Silica is high grade stuff and expensive and from my perspective deadly.

I worked on a Silica factory build and at a silica processing area some years back.
The latter was a disgusting site with fine silica everywhere, up in the trees and coating everything in sight.
The factory was also unpleasant.
There was a stockpile in a building that had started to relocate itself and flowed like glycerine out the shed and across the paddock.
A large bird was firmly cemented in place. Poor thing just stood there until it obviously died of starvation.

I couldn't hack working there and was pleased to see the end of those jobs.

If this sand is like that I pity those around such sites.

Water is roughly 62 pounds per cubic foot while sand is on the order of 92 pounds per cubic foot.

I think we've surveyed at least ten sections in the dunes in Winkler County in the last month or two. It's going to be weird driving through there without seeing sand in a few years. Interesting to think that the many miles of territory that the railroad skipped over as worthless had so much value below and now even the sand on the surface is highly sought.