U of M project aims to inform silica sand mining plan

An Alberta firm proposing silica sand mining in Manitoba has teamed up with the province’s largest university to pilot a groundwater monitoring network that experts say uses a rapidly advancing technology important to global aquifer research. Reporting and research by CBC News informed details of the project and the surrounding debate.

Sio Silica president Carla Devlin said the company and the University of Manitoba will carry out a feasibility study and design a scientifically rigorous, non‑invasive system to monitor aquifer health in real time. She framed the project as a tool not limited to the company’s site but intended to support responsible resource management across the province.

The announcement accompanies Sio Silica’s renewed push to mine sand from the sandstone aquifer beneath the Rural Municipality of Springfield in southeastern Manitoba. The NDP government denied the company a licence in 2024 over concerns about impacts to drinking water quality and the risk of subsurface collapse.

Sio’s initial proposal called for drilling 7,200 wells east and southeast of Winnipeg over 25 years to extract silica sand used in solar panels, hydraulic fracturing, glass, construction and other industries. That plan drew community opposition focused on environmental risks and potential contamination of drinking water supplies. In a later application the company proposed fewer wells, slower development and smaller volumes of extraction.

Devlin characterized the university partnership as separate from the company’s second licence application and said it represents an added level of transparency. She said the research aims to produce open, science‑based monitoring that will inform long‑term stewardship rather than stoke fear.

University of Manitoba civil engineering associate professor Ricardo Mantilla, who will lead the project, said the team will deploy quantum gravimetry to detect changes in the ground’s gravitational field as groundwater moves. He explained the approach measures variations in apparent mass—land becomes heavier or lighter as water content changes—allowing estimation of groundwater amounts in a study area. Mantilla noted Canada currently has very limited access to active instruments of this type. He also cautioned the method measures volume changes but does not assess water quality.

Mantilla said the work will yield insights beyond Sio Silica’s immediate interests, given Manitoba’s strong surface‑water/groundwater interactions, and emphasized the need to better observe subterranean water systems.

Independent hydrogeologist and hydrogeophysicist Landon Halloran, who teaches at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, said quantum gravimetry has been incorporated into new groundwater monitoring tools internationally. He pointed to NASA’s GRACE Follow‑On satellites as a gravimetry application for tracking large‑scale water changes, but said those satellites lack the spatial resolution to resolve conditions at local scales.

Halloran suggested ground‑based gravimetry could reduce reliance on costly monitoring wells and noted that once equipment is acquired the main expenses are personnel and time. He urged more attention to groundwater, calling it an often unseen but vital component of the water cycle and a key source of drinking water.

More information is available at www.SioSilica.com