Sand mines will benefit from new TexSand plant
BY JACOB MILLER • FOR THE WAUSAU DAILY HERALD • NOVEMBER 4, 2008
- MARSHFIELD — Some local sand pit miners expect to see an increase in business when TexSand Distributors LP, a sand distribution company, opens its Marshfield plant next spring.
Marlin Laidlaw, who has a mine in Richfield, just south of Marshfield, said he has worked with Jim Berry, TexSand’s vice president for development, for over a year to hash out a deal. He suspects other local miners are doing the same thing.
Berry said in mid-October that local pit owners will be the primary source of sand for the company, but it also plans to buy about 200 acres to mine its own sand.
The financial benefits will also reach industries that will work, either directly or indirectly, with TexSand, Laidlaw said.
“Believe me, this is huge for the city (of Marshfield) and the area,” he said. “The impact on people with excavating equipment, the impact it will have on sand providers, and also the fact you have people who sell trucks and stuff like that and do maintenance on those.”
The Marshfield Common Council approved the sale of 57 acres in the currently vacant Yellowstone Industrial Park to TexSand on Oct. 14. It will break ground later this month.
TexSand will mine and process a rare type of sand, frac, that can withstand high pressure in oil wells. It’s limited to certain regions of the country, including central Wisconsin, where it is abundant.
Local miners can usually only dig to a certain depth before they hit sand that has clay or shale in it, which makes it useless for many applications, Laidlaw said. TexSand will have the ability to wash out the impurities.
“So that gives us an opportunity to sell some of that,” Laidlaw said.
Guy Brandl, who owns I Brandl Incorporated and mines 108 acres, was approached a couple of years ago by TexSand to sell his property to the company, he said.
Brandl said he’d be interested in selling sand, but he hasn’t been contacted again about selling directly to the company, he said.
Dale Ladick, who owns Ladick Trucking and has three pits north of Vesper, is about 17 miles from the site of TexSand’s future plant site. He said his company regularly hauls sand in about a 40- to 50-mile radius.
“We’d be more than happy to do business with them,” Ladick said, “If they called us.”
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