Madrid Drainage Gob Reclamation Project

The Madrid Drainage Gob Reclamation Project - Phase I was located within the town of Madrid, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. This project involved reclamation of nearly one acre of gob above the Mime Museum and Mine Shaft Tavern. The gob piles were steep, acidic and eroding.

Reclamation was accomplished by:

  • Grading the two gob piles, including the partial filling of an historic concrete tank, which was the cooling tank for the original power plant on the south edge of town.
  • Constructing a diversion ditch.
  • Placing and incorporating lime, crushed limestone gravel, mycorrhiial inoculum, and compost
    into the regraded gob material.
  • Constructing barbed wire fencing around the reclaimed area.
  • Placing temporary and permanent erosion control measures, including straw wattles, straw
    bale terraces, sediment barrier dams, turf reinforcement mats, brow ditches and brush barriers.
  • Safeguarding one mine adit opening by mucking open and backfilling.
  • Planting of native seedlings (50 one-seed juniper, 100 pinyon, and 650 New Mexico locust)
    along the straw bale terraces and straw wattles, including maintaining and protecting the
    seedlings for six months.
  • Hydroseeding of regraded gob areas and areas disturbed by construction using a bonded fiber
    matrix.

The contractor was St. Cloud Mining Company of Truth or Consequences, NM.

Year Completed: 1999
Cost: $99,440.76
Project Engineer: John Kretzmann
Project Manager: Raymond Rodarte

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