Fracking Threatens to Starve Chesapeake Beaches

For the past two years we've been listening to environmentalists whine about the various negative effects of fracking, potential (if never realized) water pollution, burning faucets (that burned before fracking ever started, reducing the price of natural gas and making it the fuel of the American future (we don't don't want that when we can have unicorn farts), jobs for rough men, and so on.  Now, environmentalists have discovered a new threat that fracking poses to the environment.  By raising the price of sand (supply and demand and all), it threatens to slow down or even stop beach replenishment along toney beaches from the Hampton Virginia, to the Hamptons in Cennecticut

Buckroe Beach replenishment: Cost of sand increases with demand

As swimsuit-clad families flocked to Buckroe this summer, they have been visiting a beach partially built by sand from an unlikely source: North Carolina.

The sandy beaches lining the Chesapeake Bay are both magnets for tourism and shields against surging storms, making them an integral part of coastal communities.

In turn, tax dollars are used to maintain and expand beaches, whether it's through dredging offshore shoals, building rock groins or in some cases, hauling in sand from out of state.

The city of Hampton used federal grant money to pay for this beach replenishment

Localities forced to buy sand from suppliers — as Hampton had to do to replenish Buckroe Beach in late 2011 — are finding prices for the material have increased dramatically in recent years.

Demand for silica-based sand increased 14 percent in the past year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The price followed demand, rising to $44.78 per ton, an 82 percent increase from 2005.

Generating that demand is the increased use of hydraulic fracturing — often called "fracking" — by energy companies to extract natural gas from underground rock formations, according to the USGS. According to the USGS, nearly 60 percent of the sand consumed throughout the country in 2012 was used for fracking.

In 2013, nearly 26 millions tons of sand was used for hydraulic fracturing, well-packing and cement mixtures. That total almost exceeds the total amount of sand consumed by all industries just five years ago, according to the USGS.

The demand associated with hydraulic fracturing has increased so rapidly that new mines have been opened to supply the material. As approval of the fracking process expands, so will the demand for sand.

Energy companies won't use sand straight from coastal beaches because it may not meet industry specifications. But sand mined from suppliers that could have been used on beaches is being redirected to hydraulic fracturing sites.

It's just fine with me if the cost of beach replenishment become untenable due to fracking.  Beach replenishment is the classic case of pouring money down a hole.  Beaches will grow where they nature means them to be, and will disappear when nature no long intends them to be.  Attempts to add sand to a disappearing beach, without making any changes which will cause the sand to stay are doomed to failure.  If a municipality chooses to waste it's money on such a foolish that's between it an it's citizens.  Just don't ask me to pay for it with federal dollars.