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Adding to what cnw8835 has said, in northern Michigan at the Yuma Sand Mining Operation south of Traverse City, MI., sand is mined from an open pit and conveyored to ground level, washed, treated with a pine oil to allow the floating off of non-silica materials (twigs, insects) and then dried in a large tumbling furnace similar to what is found in cement production. It is then conveyored to covered hopper cars (many times still hot) and then transported to foundries near Detroit or Toledo and used as casting sand. <br /> <br />The unusual thing about Yuma is that it took back the spent casting sand from the foundries (very black in color) and it was buried in the same pit as it came out of. It was extremely high in phenol, which gave kind of a unusual odor. Two front end loaders worked in the pit which was about two hundred yards by two hundred yards square and moved it to the conveyor belt. <br /> <br />While working on my MS degree in chemistry/biology, I had the chance to work for a environmental consulting firm. It was our job to place testing wells around the perimeter of the Yuma operation to test for phenols in the ground water surrounding the facility.
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