The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County (12 page)

J
ust read in the
Ames County Argus
that the value of our farms has climbed up a notch,” said Oscar Anderson, as Fred Russo joined him at the Eat Well Café in Link Lake.

“How's that?” replied Fred as he took his seat.

“Ain't you been keepin' up with the news, Fred? Everybody's talking about sand these days.”

“Well, I got 160 acres of sand, sprinkled with more than a few stones too. Made life interestin' when I was still farmin'. No fun slamming into one of them damn stones with a plow or a disk or a grain binder or whatever I was workin' with at the time. Hated them damn stones. Every one of 'em. Hated every damn stone that I ever saw.”

“Fred, I'm not talking about stones. I'm talking about sand.”

“Why you talking about sand? Ain't you got anything more important on your mind than sand? Especially after we both tried to farm the damn stuff for fifty years. Fifty years is a long time to farm sand when you never know if you're gonna get a crop or not. Unless it rains regular. When it rains regular you sometimes get a crop, but never as good as those who farm on the heavy land. Never grow crops like that.”

They both stopped talking when Henrietta refilled their coffee cups. She smiled when she did. “Anything else I can get for you boys this morning?” she asked.

“Nah, coffee is enough. Them big sweet rolls look mighty appealing, though. But we eat one of them and we'll just get fat.” Fred laughed.

“Speak for yourself, Fred,” said Oscar. “Who's the one that's put on a few pounds?”

Henrietta smiled once more and returned to the lunch counter, leaving the two old friends to themselves.

“Let's get back to sand,” said Oscar.

“Boy, you are stuck in the sand,” answered Fred.

“Guess I'm just gonna have to spell it out for you, Fred. Bring you up to date with the rest of the folks hereabouts.”

“I kind of resist that comment.”

“Resent, Fred. Resent.”

“What? What'd you just say?”

“You hear about that big Alstage Sand Mining Company that's comin' to Link Lake?”

“Did hear something about it. Guy at the lumberyard mentioned it the other day. Sounded to me like another gravel pit. Got two or three gravel pits already in the county. Figured that this was another one.”

“Fred, this ain't no gravel pit. It's a sand mine.”

“A sand mine? What in hell is a sand mine?”

“See you ain't been keepin' up with the news. You gettin' that old-timers' disease that makes you forgetful.”

“Oscar, I ain't got no damn old-timer's disease. I just been busy as hell out at my place—hardly got time to go the bathroom, I've been so busy.”

“I suspect you ain't heard of frackin' either?”

“What was that you said—did you just drop that big old F word that'd get us in a heap of trouble when we was kids and said it?” Fred was grinning like he'd just eaten the last piece of pie at a threshing dinner.

“I said frackin', not what you think I said.”

“Still sounds like you're trying to spit out the F word and can't quite muster enough courage to do it.”

“Fred, I don't know what I'm going to do with you,” said Oscar. He was smiling as he said it.

“Fracking is a shortened version of hydraulic fracturing, a way to spread apart rocks that have natural gas stuck between 'em.”

“Well, why didn't you say so? Of course I have heard of draulic fracting,” said Fred.

“Hydraulic fracturing, Fred. Hydraulic fracturing.”

“Call it whatever you want. But what's natural gas got to do with sand and the value of our farms?”

“Here's the deal, Fred. Our sand is very special sand. It's tough and is just what those natural gas companies need for hydraulic fracturing.”

“So?” Fred raised his cup and took a long drink of coffee.

“So the Alstage Sand Mining Company is coming to Link Lake and plans to mine sand in the Increase Joseph Community Park that they have leased from the village,” said Oscar. “And I must say, I'm not very happy about having a sand mine in our park. That will put a kibosh on our annual bank robbery reenactment, to start with. To say nothing about all the people who simply like to walk in the park or maybe have a picnic there.”

“Is that where they're gonna have that damn old mine?”

“That's the place. What're we gonna do to keep it from happening?” asked Oscar.

“Seems like it's a done deal.”

“Does sound that way, doesn't it?” said Oscar. “You'd think so, but that's not what's gonna happen.”

“You know what would be worse?” asked Fred. “They could start diggin' up that sandy farm of yours.”

19

A
mbrose couldn't remember when he had been so upset about something. He turned to his pet raccoon, which was standing by the chair where he was sitting.

“Do you know what, Ranger? Those damn fools on the village board just voted to put a sand mine in our village park. And even worse, the mining company says they've got to cut down the Trail Marker Oak to make a road into the mine.”

Ranger looked at his master with an apparent understanding of the torment Ambrose was feeling.

“How stupid could the Link Lake Village Board be to allow a mining company to tear up the village's only park, and quite a historical one at that? And the thought of cutting down the Trail Marker Oak makes me sick to my stomach.”

Ambrose looked out the window of his old farmhouse, toward his garden that had begun to produce well as ample rains had come to Ames County in the spring and had continued periodically into early summer. He wondered again, was this the time to reveal his true identity?

In 2010, Stony Field had won the National Environmental Writer of the Year award. The National Association of Environmental Writers made the award, which in addition to the publicity included a $10,000 prize. The organization thought that surely the award would cause Stony Field to emerge from the shadows—who would pass up $10,000? But no one appeared at the awards ceremony and the $10,000 went unclaimed for the first time in thirty years. By now people wondered if there was such a person as Stony Field. Some suggested the column might be the work of several writers collaborating.

Stony Field remained a mystery, but nonetheless a well-informed, albeit controversial environmental writer not afraid to take a position, but who also invited those disagreeing with him to speak out. More than once he had written that his goal was to get people thinking about the environment and then acting responsibly. But he was highly critical of those who failed to produce arguments supported with facts and clear, critical thinking. Occasionally, and more often in recent years, he found himself taking on the loud-talking, fact-lacking radio and TV pundits who made a lot of noise, much of it directed toward him and other environmental writers who dared to stand up for the natural environment and argued for a balance between decisions that enhanced the economic well-being of a community and at the same time protected the environment, as well as a community's identity and history.

Ambrose opened the door to his little office, a door he kept locked for here is where he wrote his columns, kept his considerable collection of books (Gloria mailed him new and what were considered significant environmental books as soon as they came off the presses), scrapbooks of his published columns, a wall of awards he had won for his writing, and framed letters of congratulations from a variety of notables including Al Gore. He was proud of what he had accomplished, and perhaps even more pleased that he was able to do what no one thought he could—a stuttering person had become a nationally known environmental writer. How could that be? He chuckled at the thought of it. He sat down on his well-worn office chair, picked up a sheet of typing paper, and fed it into his old Remington manual typewriter. This typewriter had served him well; after all these years, he still enjoyed the feel of the keys beneath his fingers, and the ding that announced he should throw the carriage and start a new line of type. It took some work to type on a manual typewriter; each key required a definite push before a little lever rose up from its resting place and slammed against the paper with a definite “thunk.”

He had not admitted this to Gloria, but it was when he was sitting at his typewriter, watching letters, words, and sentences line up on the paper in front of him, that he felt most useful, most wanted. His main loves these days were working his garden, smelling the fresh soil as he turned it, his pet raccoon and dog, walking the trails on his farm, and writing his weekly columns. And of course he had never gotten over Gloria, the one and only true love of his life. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't think about her and the wonderful times they had together, now so many long years ago.

He began typing:

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