{"id":21569,"date":"2014-10-13T16:07:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T21:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=21569"},"modified":"2014-10-13T16:34:12","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T21:34:12","slug":"three-reasons-to-care-that-oklahoma-is-no-1-in-gypsum-twinkies-beer-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/10\/13\/three-reasons-to-care-that-oklahoma-is-no-1-in-gypsum-twinkies-beer-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Reasons to Care That Oklahoma is No. 1 in Gypsum: Twinkies, Beer, Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gypsum<\/a><\/p>\n

Chip Smith \/ Flickr<\/p>\n

Gypsum embedded in the landscape at Gloss Mountain State Park in Major County.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Here’s what seems like a mundane factoid about the Sooner State: Oklahoma leads the nation in gypsum mining.<\/p>

Mildly interesting, right? Actually, it’s fascinating, as\u00a0The Oklahoman<\/em>‘s Mike Coppock explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The next time you bite down on a Twinkie, know there is a good chance part of it was mined out of a mesa south of Little Sahara State Park.<\/p>

The same goes for the beer you may order at Bricktown or the loaf of bread you buy at the grocery store.<\/p>

Oklahoma not only leads the nation in gypsum mining, but gypsum in Oklahoma is so pure that it is used as a calcium additive for foods we take for granted and in common medications.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Jim Hill, a representative for Harrison Gypsum, told the paper the company’s mine near Bouse Junction \u2014 east of Woodward \u2014 produces gypsum that’s 90 percent pure and food-grade, but that most of the gypsum goes to support the energy industry:<\/p>\n

Gypsum is used by the oil and gas industry as a road pavement so dirt roads won’t break down as heavy equipment goes over them.<\/p>

It is used at oil platforms as a ground covering before the structure is set up<\/p>

“Our mining operations pretty much follows the rig count,” Hill says.<\/p><\/blockquote>

So as the energy industry has boomed in Oklahoma, so has gypsum mining, though much is still used for “wallboard products.”<\/p>

The paper reports “more than 5 million tons of gypsum is mined in Oklahoma annually involving 22 companies strung out across seven western counties” and that Major County produces the most.<\/p>\n

Although the state sees tons of gypsum taken out of the ground each year and local residents find entire mesas shaved down, [the Oklahoma Geological Survey’s Stan Krukowski] says there is no concern that Oklahoma is running out of gypsum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the energy industry has boomed in Oklahoma, so has gypsum mining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[447],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21569"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21594,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21569\/revisions\/21594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}