Starting in 1965 the Bureau of Land Management began to restore them, and they have become an increasingly important ecological habitat for shorebirds, waterbirds and other wildlife and native plants.

[6] The Blanca Wildlife Habitat Area covers almost 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) south of San Luis Lakes and near to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

In contains about two hundred shallow basins floored by layers of sand and clay, holding wet meadows, salt flats, marshes and fresh water ponds.

[4] The Blanca Wildlife Habitat Area has been designated as an official mitigation site for wetland losses that have been caused by construction and operation of the Closed Basin Project by the Bureau of Reclamation.

[4] As of February 2012 the Bureau of Land Management was asking for input from the public on a proposal to expand the Blanca Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

[9] The wetlands is a duck breeding concentration area, with mallards by far the most common, but good numbers of pintail and green-winged teal also visiting.

The least chipmunk is common in the greasewood parks that adjoin the wetlands and the Ord's kangaroo rat lives in the sand dunes.

[11] Some of the water from the Closed Basin Project, which mainly collects groundwater for irrigation in the Rio Grande valley, is delivered to the Blanca Wildlife Habitat Area.

[6] The Bureau of Land Management is required to maintain "mitigation acres" to offset the impact of the Closed Basin Project.

In 2010 the Bureau of Land Management was reviewing plans for large-scale drying of the wetlands, coupled with irrigating the adjacent South San Luis Lakes to the north.