Community airborne particulate matter from mining for sand used as hydraulic fracturing proppant.

Field and laboratory studies were conducted to evaluate the impact of proppant sand mining and processing activities on community particulate matter (PM) concentrations. In field studies outside 17 homes within 800m of sand mining activities (mining, processing, and transport), respirable (PM) crystalline silica concentrations were low (<0.4μg/m) with crystalline silica detected on 7 samples (2% to 4% of mass).