I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Albuquerque-based Samcon, Inc. has won a $738,000 state contract for a second attempt to stabilize soil and encourage vegetation growth to control erosion at a large abandoned coal mine waste pile in the Sugarite Canyon State Park, northeast of Raton.
The project is just the latest in a decade-long, $4 million effort to preserve the park’s five huge mine waste piles and to slow their erosion into creeks and streams in the canyon.
The waste piles are part of state-protected historical mining sites, complicating efforts to stem their erosion, state abandoned mine land project manager John Kretzmann told The Independent.
Samcon was previously awarded a 2008 contract for $824,000 for similar work at another of the park’s five mine waste piles, scattered over a 20-acre reach of the canyon.
The new project is the seventh erosion control effort since 1999 involving the park’s five mine waste piles. It is the state Mining and Minerals Division’s second attempt control soil erosion at a site originally stabilized between 1999 and 2001, Kretzmann said Tuesday.
The Division has awarded erosion control contracts in “phases” or steps, according to the Division website.
That’s because other attempts to preserve mine waste piles have not been undertaken before, Kretzmann said. The state needed to determine the best approach through a series of smaller projects.
“It has required a lot of experimentation, trying different approaches, seeing what did and did not work,” Kretzmann said.
The state has spent approximately $4 million since 1999 to preserve and contain the park’s mine waste piles, Kretzmann said.
Historic site status complicates waste pile management
The mines were active between 1901 and 1941, and the state historical preservation office has declared the waste piles to be protected historic structures. Mine waste therefore cannot be removed from the sites, Kretsmann said.
“We’ve tried a number of reclamation techniques,” Kretzmann said. “The difficulties (have been) very steep slopes, the requirements by State Historic Preservation Officer that the piles be left in place. They consider the waste piles to be part of the historic landscape, and won’t allow the removal of the waste, which would’ve been the more typical approach.”
Even if the areas were not protected as historical sites, though, steep slopes and limited road access would have made removal of the waste “extremely expensive,” Kretzmann said.
Kretzmann did not know the cost of each individual phase or project in the park, but estimated the total effort had cost $3 million since 1999.
The waste piles are composed of ore shale, sandstone and coal fragments dumped at the surface near mine entrances, Kretzmann said. Because the waste is slightly acidic and contains coal, pollution from the sites can degrade water quality.
“As the shales have weathered, they have (created) very heavy clay material full of sodium,” Kretzmann said.
That sodium and slightly acidic soil chemistry discourages plant growth, Kretzmann said, complicating erosion control efforts centered on tree plantings.
“In order to counteract the sodium, we’re working in gypsum, wood waste, a little lime because the soil is slightly acidic,” he said. “All of these help open up the soils so the plants can grow and flush the sodium into deeper soil.”
New Mexico’s federally funded Abandoned Mine Land Program identifies and mitigates abandoned mine hazards on public and private lands throughout the state.
New Mexico has more than 15,000 uncorrected hazardous abandoned mines, according to the Division website. The Abandoned Mine Land Program has closed 4,000 hazardous mine openings over the past three decades.
