The State of New Mexico recently completed reclamation projects at three abandoned historic coal mining areas – the Carthage mining area in Socorro County, and Sugarite and Yankee Canyons in Colfax County near Raton. The Mining and Minerals Division employs grant money from the U.S. Department of the Interior to address threats to public safety and the environment from abandoned mines. These projects were undertaken to reduce erosion from coal mine waste piles and to protect water quality in surface streams.
At Carthage, ten miles east of San Antonio, New Mexico, Runyan Construction of Silver City seeded over sixteen acres at several coal mine waste piles using a drum imprinter, which is pulled behind a tractor to make impressions in the soil that hold precipitation and help seeds get started in arid conditions. Seven underground coal mines produced coal in the area through 1967, providing coal for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, the Albuquerque school system and local markets. Soldiers from Fort Craig first mined coal in the Carthage area in 1856.
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