Mining Incidents
Search Operators Mines Alerts Research Controllers Fatalgrams About
Countries
Peru Chile
English Español
Abandoned mines › Puerto Rico
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Vega Baja Municipio, Puerto Rico

Vega Baja Municipio, Puerto Rico has 4 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1953–1969. MSHA's register carries 20 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Vega Baja Municipio, 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)
4
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
20
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits1 quadrangle maps, published 1953–1969 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    4 100.0%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned20 on register
  1. ARENAS DE MOROUIS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Arenas De Morouis · MSHA ID 5400432
    Abandoned
  2. Arenero Morovis
    Surface metal/non-metal · Master Aggregates Corp · MSHA ID 5400219
    Abandoned
  3. ARENERO SAN LORENZO
    Surface metal/non-metal · Agregados De Manati · MSHA ID 5400434
    Abandoned
  4. ARENERO VEGA BAJA
    Surface metal/non-metal · Nrs Universal Contractors Of Pr · MSHA ID 5400436
    Abandoned
  5. ARENERO VENTANAS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Empresas Rodalvia Inc · MSHA ID 5400388
    Abandoned
  6. Cantera Espinosa
    Surface metal/non-metal · San Juan Cement Company Inc · MSHA ID 5400241
    Abandoned
  7. Cantera Las Carolinas
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rexach Aggregates Corp · MSHA ID 5400183
    Abandoned
  8. CANTERA RIVERA
    Surface metal/non-metal · Charlie Rental Heavy Equipment · MSHA ID 5400398
    Abandoned
  9. Ciales Aggregates
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ciales Aggregates · MSHA ID 5400079
    Abandoned
  10. GRAERO PEDRITO
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gonzalo Rivera · MSHA ID 5400396
    Abandoned
  11. Gravera Canabon
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rexach Aggregates Corp · MSHA ID 5400068
    Abandoned
  12. Gravero Calabaza
    Surface metal/non-metal · Devcon International Corp · MSHA ID 5400216
    Abandoned
  13. Gravero Juncos
    Surface metal/non-metal · Juncos Sand · MSHA ID 5400206
    Abandoned
  14. GRAVERO LA VEGA
    Surface metal/non-metal · Augusto Hernandez · MSHA ID 5400378
    Abandoned
  15. Guaraguao Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Guaraguao Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 5400284
    Abandoned
  16. Jocarlrick Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Jocarlrick Quarries Corp · MSHA ID 5400106
    Abandoned
  17. Luis A Soldevila Ferrer
    Surface metal/non-metal · Luis A Soldevila Ferrer · MSHA ID 5400306
    Abandoned
  18. PROJECT AC-2003
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mejia Construction Corp · MSHA ID 5400402
    Abandoned
  19. Proyecto Azur
    Surface metal/non-metal · Juan Piza Blondet · MSHA ID 5400317
    Abandoned
  20. VEGA BAJA SAND PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owens Illinois De Pr · MSHA ID 5400341
    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
Quarry 4
Other counties in Puerto RicoAll 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.