By Johnny Shafe-Green River Star Newspaper
Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 6:06 PM MST
More than 28 months have passed since the weights stopped falling on a pilot dynamic compaction project near the “tree street” homes on the southwest side of Rock Springs.Families in 12 houses and the Springview Manor apartments still await a decision by the state on the damages to their residences caused by the alternating drops of a 25 and 35-ton weights near their homes in order to create more developable land.Dynamic compaction is a process described by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality as “the process of repeatedly dropping heavy weights on the ground in a systematic pattern to collapse underground mine voids and compact rubble zones remaining from historic underground mining activities.” The entire aim of the project was “protecting the public from the effects of coal mine subsidence.”The project, overseen by the Abandoned Mine Lands division of the DEQ, was halted Aug. 6, 2007, after concerns from residents arose when damage began to appear in their homes after work began.
Five months later, John Corra, director of the DEQ, announced that AML plans for other tracts of land in the area selected for mine subsidence mitigation by dynamic compaction were being redrawn to exclude the process altogether.
Amidst talk and bureaucratic processes, the residents have yet to receive closure on the botched AML project.
The residents recently banded together again, putting on an open house-style tour for Rep. Bill Thompson, Stan Blake and Bernadine Craft, in addition to Sen. John Hastert and the media.
The purpose of the tour was to show the continuing damage to the homes as the ground beneath continues to shift.
The attorney general’s office wants to hire another engineer; a structural engineer this time. Harry Moore, the engineer previously designated to assess the damages to the houses in 2008 was a street engineer.
The 2008 assessment was the last time the residents received a settlement offer.
The point of contention between the state and the residents is the AG’s desire to make the engineer’s assessment a binding agreement.
The residents are being asked to agree to a reimbursement total without knowing what the dollar amount would be, instead of conducting the assessment and then offering a settlement.
“I’m embarrassed on how we’re handling this on the state level,” Thompson said. “I’m really frustrated about this whole ordeal.”
“I was appalled at the conditions of the homes these people have to live in, as well as the treatment of these people by the state.” Blake said of the tour of the affected houses. “It’s unacceptable.”
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
News Broadcast Thrusday Dec. 3, 2009
Here is a news broadcast that was done on Thursday December 3, 2009.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
State needs to settle "BIG DROP CLAIMS"
written by the editor of the casper star tribune. please feel free to leave comments.
It's been more than two years since a ground-pounding subsidence project in Rock Springs was halted by Wyoming's Abandoned Mine Lands Division after nearly two dozen homeowners complained about damage.
The state has yet to settle with residents of the Tree Street neighborhood, where 25- and 35-ton weights were dropped more than 2,000 times on a nearby tract of unoccupied land. The "dynamic compaction" experiment (known in Rock Springs as "The Big Drop") was part of a pilot project intended to stabilize the land for housing construction.
Houses in the neighborhood were built over old underground coal mine voids. Engineering studies show that there continues to be movement in the old mine workings beneath the neighborhood and the subsidence risk in the area remains high.
Days after the dynamic compaction project began, residents began complaining that the shock waves from the dropped weights was shaking houses, cracking driveways and foundations, accelerating ongoing subsidence and severely damaging their houses.
The Abandoned Mine Lands Division offered to pay for damages that an Evanston-based engineer determined may have been caused by the ground pounding. But the offers were much lower than what it would cost to actually repair the homes' subsidence damage, and most homeowners refused the settlement.
They are amazed that nothing has been done to fix their homes, and so are we. "We're not just frustrated .. we're way beyond frustrated at this point," said Ash Street resident Donna Maynard.
It has taken the state far too long to settle this issue. The money exists to make these homeowners whole, and it should be used for that purpose because that's precisely what it was intended to do: address problems caused by old, abandoned mines.
Coal companies contribute 35 cents for every ton of coal extracted from surface mines and 15 cents per ton from underground mines to fund mine reclamation projects. Over the past 20 years, Wyoming's AML has spent more than $80 million on various grouting and excavation-and-backfill mine reclamation projects across Rock Springs.
The AML Division has been conducting subsurface investigations since the fall of 2007 to determine if any further mitigation measures are required. Engineers resumed drilling in the neighborhood in September to gather additional data, and will continue through December.
AML Administrator Rick Chancellor said the agency hopes to have a negotiated agreement soon with the homeowners that should lead the way to new inspections. That's the first hopeful sign we've seen in the past year.
It will likely be difficult to prove that dynamic compaction directly caused all of the damage to houses. But there's no question that mine subsidence has badly damaged a significant number of homes in the neighborhood, and the risks of further damage are still great. It's an issue the state can't afford to ignore.
Members of the House this year unanimously passed a budget amendment that would have allocated $2.8 million to provide relief to the homeowners, but it was rejected by the Senate. The AML Division did agree, at the behest of state lawmakers, to redo the engineering inspections with the goal of making new compensation offers.
It's time for the state to open up the purse strings and get this accomplished. Money should not be an issue.
It's been more than two years since a ground-pounding subsidence project in Rock Springs was halted by Wyoming's Abandoned Mine Lands Division after nearly two dozen homeowners complained about damage.
The state has yet to settle with residents of the Tree Street neighborhood, where 25- and 35-ton weights were dropped more than 2,000 times on a nearby tract of unoccupied land. The "dynamic compaction" experiment (known in Rock Springs as "The Big Drop") was part of a pilot project intended to stabilize the land for housing construction.
Houses in the neighborhood were built over old underground coal mine voids. Engineering studies show that there continues to be movement in the old mine workings beneath the neighborhood and the subsidence risk in the area remains high.
Days after the dynamic compaction project began, residents began complaining that the shock waves from the dropped weights was shaking houses, cracking driveways and foundations, accelerating ongoing subsidence and severely damaging their houses.
The Abandoned Mine Lands Division offered to pay for damages that an Evanston-based engineer determined may have been caused by the ground pounding. But the offers were much lower than what it would cost to actually repair the homes' subsidence damage, and most homeowners refused the settlement.
They are amazed that nothing has been done to fix their homes, and so are we. "We're not just frustrated .. we're way beyond frustrated at this point," said Ash Street resident Donna Maynard.
It has taken the state far too long to settle this issue. The money exists to make these homeowners whole, and it should be used for that purpose because that's precisely what it was intended to do: address problems caused by old, abandoned mines.
Coal companies contribute 35 cents for every ton of coal extracted from surface mines and 15 cents per ton from underground mines to fund mine reclamation projects. Over the past 20 years, Wyoming's AML has spent more than $80 million on various grouting and excavation-and-backfill mine reclamation projects across Rock Springs.
The AML Division has been conducting subsurface investigations since the fall of 2007 to determine if any further mitigation measures are required. Engineers resumed drilling in the neighborhood in September to gather additional data, and will continue through December.
AML Administrator Rick Chancellor said the agency hopes to have a negotiated agreement soon with the homeowners that should lead the way to new inspections. That's the first hopeful sign we've seen in the past year.
It will likely be difficult to prove that dynamic compaction directly caused all of the damage to houses. But there's no question that mine subsidence has badly damaged a significant number of homes in the neighborhood, and the risks of further damage are still great. It's an issue the state can't afford to ignore.
Members of the House this year unanimously passed a budget amendment that would have allocated $2.8 million to provide relief to the homeowners, but it was rejected by the Senate. The AML Division did agree, at the behest of state lawmakers, to redo the engineering inspections with the goal of making new compensation offers.
It's time for the state to open up the purse strings and get this accomplished. Money should not be an issue.
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