SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A complaint filed Wednesday demands judicial review of an open pit silica sand mining permit the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Office of Mines and Minerals has granted to Mississippi Sand, LLC.

The complaintm which the Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network, and Openlands filed in circuit court in Springfield, Ill., alleges that IDNR failed to protect Starved Rock State Park — one of the most beautiful and popular state parks in Illinois — when it approved an 80-acre open pit mine. The mine is designed to harvest and process silica sand for use in the hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) natural gas extraction process.