BLM begins Rail Rock mine cleanup near Lordsburg Playa

BLM crews are reclaiming the Rail Rock abandoned mine site on the edge of Lordsburg Playa, where 30-foot to 60-foot vertical drops, open bore holes and water-filled pits have left a hazardous scar beside one of Hidalgo County’s most crash-prone dust corridors. The work will regrade the pits to a 2-to-1 slope, plug bore holes and convert parts of the site from a liability into a safer landscape for people, wildlife and grazing lands.

The abandoned mine lands program deals with mines left before Jan. 1, 1981, when modern reclamation requirements were not yet in place. In New Mexico, legacy mining can leave behind safety hazards, contamination concerns and damage that must be addressed alongside wildlife habitat and archaeological resources.

At Rail Rock, two water-filled pits will be modified to create wildlife water, and cattle will be kept out with an exclosure so the new water source remains dedicated to wildlife. The Mexican long-nosed bat will benefit from improved water resources at the site. The endangered migratory bat moves annually between Mexico and the southwestern United States, following blooming agaves and cacti, which makes secure water sources in desert country especially valuable.

The cleanup sits beside a landscape already under pressure from wind, grazing and highway traffic. The Lordsburg Playa is a 25-to-30-square-mile dried lake bed between Interstate 10 mile markers 5 and 13, and most of the roughly 16,000-acre playa is owned by BLM and the State Land Office and leased for cattle grazing, according to the New Mexico Department of Transportation. Cattle movement can break the playa surface and contribute to dust emissions. A serious crash near Lordsburg in 2014 helped spur a dust-mitigation program, and the agency’s 2021 update counted more than 40 dust-related highway deaths on the corridor since 1965, along with 21 deaths, 39 closures of I-10 and 120 dust events from 2012 onward.

BLM has closed more than 300 mine features in southwest New Mexico since 2016, with additional funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law beginning in 2022. The central Lordsburg Playa was also nominated for possible Area of Critical Environmental Concern status under natural hazard and public welfare criteria.