Mining Incidents
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Cayuga County, New York

Cayuga County, New York has 89 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1942–1978. MSHA's register carries 19 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Cayuga County, every OSMRE abandoned mine land problem in the county, and every MSHA-registered mine here with status Abandoned. Named features are listed below; unnamed ones are counted by type. Locations are deliberately not shown: this page says what abandoned workings are in the county, not where to find them. They are dangerous and should not be entered.

Mapped mine features (USGS)
89
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
19
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits15 quadrangle maps, published 1942–1978 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    46 51.7%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    43 48.3%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned19 on register
  1. Auburn Sand & Stone Inc.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Auburn Sand & Stone Inc · MSHA ID 3000902
    Abandoned
  2. Binns Excavating & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bradley S Binns · MSHA ID 3003647
    Abandoned
  3. Binns Excavation & Gravel 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bradley S Binns · MSHA ID 3003942
    Abandoned
  4. Extec 5896
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robinson Concrete Inc. · MSHA ID 3003538
    Abandoned
  5. Genoa Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Genoa Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3003132
    Abandoned
  6. Moravia Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Suit-Kote Corporation · MSHA ID 3002899
    Abandoned
  7. O'Toole Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cayuga County Highway Department · MSHA ID 3001898
    Abandoned
  8. O'Toole Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Venice · MSHA ID 3002420
    Abandoned
  9. O'Toole Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Scipio · MSHA ID 3002421
    Abandoned
  10. Oakwood Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Susquehanna Quarry Company · MSHA ID 3000046
    Abandoned
  11. Perry's Top Soil & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Perry's Top Soil & Gravel · MSHA ID 3003889
    Abandoned
  12. PLANT #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lewbro Ready-Mix Inc Sand & Gravel Div · MSHA ID 3002813
    Abandoned
  13. RANDOLPH MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · William T Randolph · MSHA ID 3003109
    Abandoned
  14. Rasmussen Gravel Products LLC-Sennet
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rasmussen Gravel Products LLC · MSHA ID 3003416
    Abandoned
  15. Reeves Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · R M S Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 3002658
    Abandoned
  16. ROLLING HILLS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Montclair Enterprises Inc · MSHA ID 3003189
    Abandoned
  17. Town Of Genoa
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Genoa Highway Department · MSHA ID 3001897
    Abandoned
  18. Town Of Niles
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Niles Highway Department · MSHA ID 3001895
    Abandoned
  19. Town Of Summer Hill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Summer Hill Highway Departm · MSHA ID 3001896
    Abandoned

Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms
Feature type Features
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 34
Gravel Pit 20
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 18
Disturbed Surface 7
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 5
Gravel Pit 2
Quarry 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
Shale Pit 1
Other counties in New YorkAll counties →
How to read these numbers

A USGS feature is a symbol on a historical topographic map, there when the map was surveyed; it may since have been sealed, reclaimed, built over or reopened as a working mine, and the map does not say which. An OSMRE row is a problem the abandoned mine land program tracks, not a mine. An MSHA mine is a registered operation whose operator reported abandonment, a record that starts in the 1970s. The three overlap and are never added together. The county is assigned from each feature's coordinates against the Census 2023 county boundaries. The full method is on the national page.

Sources
  1. USGS, Consolidated Prospect- and Mine-Related Features from 7.5- and 15-Minute Topographic Quadrangle Maps of the United States (USMIN)
    597,612 point and area features digitized from about 106,350 historical topographic maps published 1886–2006; public domain (CC0). A feature is a map symbol, not a field-verified site, and the map does not say whether it was still worked.
  2. USGS Fact Sheet 2025–3003, The Abandoned Mine Inventory of the United States
    States that as of 2025 there is no comprehensive national inventory of abandoned mine features, and that the detailed national database now being built will not be published.
  3. OSMRE, Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System (e-AMLIS), public Problems layer
    One row per abandoned mine land problem in a problem area, with its type, funding program and reclamation status; mostly coal mined before the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Coordinates are the problem area's.
  4. MSHA, Mines dataset (Mine Data Retrieval System)
    Every mine registered with MSHA since the 1970s; a mine reads Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed when its operator reported that status. Refreshed weekly.
  5. US Census Bureau, 2023 cartographic county boundaries (1:500,000)
    Each feature's county is assigned by its coordinates against these boundaries, not copied from the source file.
  6. GAO-20-238, Abandoned Hardrock Mines (March 2020)
    Federal agencies had identified at least 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features on federal land and estimated more than 390,000 more not yet captured in their databases.
  7. Abandoned Hardrock Mine Reclamation (AHMR) Program, US Department of the Interior
    The program the USGS inventory is compiled for. Its appropriations and the 674,000 field-confirmed feature count on this page were provided by the program manager, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance, and are cited with permission (2026-09-08).
  8. IMCC-NAAMLP Hardrock AML Report
    Page 48 carries the two figures this page leans on: USGS estimates 633,181 of the 725,690 mine features it recorded from historic topographic maps, 87 percent, are hardrock; and state and federal agencies have submitted more than 724,000 AML features to the national database being built, already more than the historic maps hold. Year-by-year AHMR funding is on page 35.