News.bytes Extra, issue 267

Beware hidden mineshafts! BLM secures another one - many more left

A nine-year-old motorcyclist escaped with relatively minor injuries and no broken bones after falling 50 feet down a mine shaft south of Red Mountain, while visiting family over Christmas break. Rescuers said the the boy fell into one of the old mine shafts outside the designated off-road recreation area.

Stay on designated trails - BLM workers at the site of the barely-visible abandoned mine shaft:

"The lesson to be learned from this is stay on the designated trails," Kern County Fire Department Capt. Tony Plante told the Ridgecrest Daily In dependent. "There are so many shafts out there, it hard to know where they’re all at."

Personnel from BLM's Ridgecrest Field Office contacted the Kern County Fire Department to find the exact location of the shaft, and installed a fence until a permanent closure could be completed.

A temporary fence surrounds the abandoned mineshaft:

Only the fence and a sign make the hazard visible - but there are lots more where this came from::

Related: Abandoned mine lands in California: Nearly 13,000 mine properties in California and northwest Nevada are listed in the Bureau of Mines Mineral Industries Location System database as on BLM land. An estimated additional 5,000 sites not recorded in the database are likely on BLM land. Of these 18,000, an estimated 3,000 significant properties contain hazardous substances or physical features and/or have environmental problems.

Stay out - stay alive (BLM national website)

- 2/07

BLM California News.bytes, issue 267