What one frac-sand mining company is doing to help protect Wisconsin’s endangered Karner blue butterfly.

Overview of permits required to operate a frac-sand mine.

Resources to learn more.

There’s a new wrinkle in Wisconsin’s fast-growing frac sand mining: It turns out that an endangered butterfly, the Karner blue, lives in the same region. And some companies may be failing to check for the butterfly as they move ahead with mining operations.

Republicans in the state Legislature have unveiled a long-awaited bill to revamp state wetlands policy. The proposal, the subject of a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism report published in November, would make it easier for developers to infill wetlands in exchange for what’s known as “mitigation,” the creation of new wetlands.

On Feb. 2, 2011, the Legislature voted to exempt a little patch of land, less than a mile down the road from the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field, from the state’s wetlands rules, once called “the strongest wetland protections in the country.” The bill, passed on World Wetlands Day, will let up to three acres of the so-called Bergstrom wetland be filled with no additional permits or process.

Dairyland and other Wisconsin coal-fired plants have begun lowering emissions, but not necessarily in response to demands by pollution regulators. Many of the changes have resulted from pressure and lawsuits brought by the nonprofit Sierra Club, which has campaigned for a decade to cut emissions from coal combustion. But enforcement is inconsistent, and some residents living in the shadow of coal plants are concerned their health may be affected.

This western Wisconsin community is in the midst of a land rush — call it a sand rush — fueled by exploding nationwide demand for fine silica sand used in hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas. At least 16 frac sand mines and processing facilities are operating, and an additional 25 sites are proposed, in a diagonal swath stretching across 15 Wisconsin counties from Burnett to Columbia, the Center has found.