Complicated story.

Pattison is doing open pit (mountain-top) mining north of Guttenberg off of Mississippi Road.

That's where the photo was taken that was in the Gazette.

That photo is actually pretty tame, compared to the moonscape that you will see if you drive Mississippi Rd.

The decades-old silica mine in the bluff that faces the Mississippi just below Clayton has been temporarily shut down by the feds for safety reasons.

But they haul a lot of sand from the site near Guttenberg up to the blufftop by Clayton, where it's processed and then hauled by truck through McGregor to Prairie du Chien, where they put it on rail cars bound for Oklahoma and elsewhere.

LOTS of environmental issues!

Larry