Candidate tours damaged homes

Mead tells 'Tree Street' residents to keep fighting for equitable solution


By JEFF GEARINO - Southwest Wyoming bureau Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 12:15 am


ROCK SPRINGS -- For two years now, residents of the downtown "Tree Street" neighborhood whose homes were damaged during an ill-fated mine subsidence project have begged help from anybody who would listen.
The homeowners have done dozens of interviews with print and TV media.
They've conducted tours for state lawmakers, lobbied legislators and written hundreds of letters to officials and others in hopes of getting a fair settlement from the state to repair the damage.
Now they're turning for help from those who are just seeking office.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Mead toured four Tree Street homes and an apartment complex while campaigning here on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the damage caused by the July 2007 project.
The project, conducted by the Wyoming Abandoned Mine Lands Division, aimed to free up vacant lands in the city so they could be developed for housing to help cope with a booming, energy-related demand for affordable homes. The dropping of 25- and 35-ton weights more than 2,300 times over two weeks ended up damaging nearly 20 homes.
Like other lawmakers who toured some of the homes earlier this month, Mead said he was stunned by what he saw.
"There's a shocking amount of damage I've seen here today ... There's some terrible angst involved in all of this," Mead said during an informal meeting with about a dozen homeowners after the tour.
The Jelm rancher, who served as U.S. attorney for Wyoming from 2001 to 2007, urged residents to not wait until the November election in hope that a new governor might fix their problems.
He said homeowners should continue to inform the public of their plight and keep fighting for a fair and equitable solution from the state.
"I'd hate to have you think that this would all change if there were a new governor ... so I would not take my foot off the gas pedal yet, if I were you," Mead said.
"Don't wait for me or anybody to get elected ... keep the throttle going on this," he added. "There is nothing more frustrating than not having any answer or any direction (from the state). I'll try to give you some."
Becky Kelley, the unofficial spokeswoman for the Tree Street residents, said Wednesday she and other homeowners continue to be frustrated with the slow pace of the resolution process.
However, she said residents were heartened by Mead's visit and the handful of recent tours by other area lawmakers.
"We're glad somebody is listening ... these (lawmakers) get really interested once they get here and see the damage to these homes themselves," Kelley said. "They're shocked when they see that we have a legitimate complaint. We hope Matt will make this a campaign issue."
Mead told residents he would study the issue and then send each homeowner a letter in the next few weeks spelling out how he would deal with the issue if he were governor.
'Bureaucratic impasse'
The state sent in engineers to assess 19 damage claims filed by homeowners under a settlement process established by the Abandoned Mine Lands Division in 2008. The state followed up with settlement offers based on the engineers' report, but only two homeowners accepted the state's initial offers.
Homeowners are now pinning their hopes on planned new inspections by structural engineers in the coming year that they believe will finally reveal the true extent of the damage.
On Monday, Sen. Stan Cooper, R-Kemmerer, released a Jan. 20 letter he sent to Gov. Dave Freudenthal after he and other southwest Wyoming lawmakers surveyed the damage during a Jan. 13 tour of nearly a dozen homes.
Cooper said residents affected by the dynamic compaction project are receiving little or no help from the state.
He urged the governor to use budgeted state AML funds to pay for much-needed repairs to damaged homes.
"I write this letter with a great deal of frustration over what appears to be a state governmental bureaucracy that has gone completely 'off the rails,'" Cooper wrote. "One gets the feeling that the State's position is ... if we all just ignore this issue long enough, it will go away.
"It is time that this bureaucratic impasse is lifted and that we get on with the business of assisting these people."
He noted the governor's budget message submitted with the state budget recommendations for the 2011-12 biennium said there will be $116 million available for AML funding. Cooper said much of that funding will not be spent on direct abandoned mine reclamation projects.
"Why is it not possible to use a fairly small amount of these funds to rectify the damage that has been done to these homes," Cooper said in the letter.
"Our legislative attempts in the past have met with claims ... that there is a shortage of funds for the existing AML projects," he continued. "Maybe it's time we divert some of those funds to use for something that they were really intended for."
Contact southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino at 307-875-5359 or gearino@tribcsp.com