Owners of subsidence-damaged homes hope for resolution this year-STILL WAITING

By JEFF GEARINO Southwest Wyoming bureau Posted: Friday, January 1, 2010 12:55 am

ROCK SPRINGS -- A few months ago, Becky Kelley made husband Weldon cut two large pieces of plywood as a just-in-case measure for her beleaguered kitchen.
Just in case her big bay window falls out.
"It cracks and pops all the time now ... and there's a some big gaps showing," Kelley said in an interview last week. "I'm really afraid it's just going to fall right out at some point."
It has been more than three years after a controversial subsidence project known as the "Big Drop" damaged Kelley's and more than a dozen other homes in the city's "Tree Street" neighborhood.
The state and most residents have yet to reach monetary settlements for the damage, and Kelley said homeowners in the area continue to be frustrated with the slow pace of the process. But there's hope for resolution in 2010.
Kelley said homeowners are pinning their hopes on planned new inspections by structural engineers in the coming year that they hope will finally reveal the true extent of the damage caused by the controversial ground-pounding project.
In the meantime, many homeowners including Kelley are still seeing new damage appear from the ill-fated, 2007 mine subsidence project.
"If they wait another year to fix this mess, I'm not sure my house will still be standing," she said. "The ground is still moving all the time ... and we're still seeing damage."
The Tree Street homeowners have been battling state government over the mine subsidence projects -- and the state's first settlement offers -- for more than three years.
Wyoming Abandoned Mine Lands Division officials have repeatedly said the state will stand by its initial pledge to repair homes damaged from the project.
State officials are expected to base their next settlement offers on the new inspections, if an agreement can be reached with homeowners.
New inspections?
The reinspections come at the behest of state lawmakers, who attempted to allocate funding for the new engineers' assessments during the 2008 Legislature.
Rep. Bernadine Craft, D-Rock Springs, and other county lawmakers sponsored a $2.8 million bill in a budget amendment during the session that aimed to provide homeowners more money for repairs to houses damaged from the project.
The measure allocated an initial $65,000 for the state to contract with a structural engineer to reassess the damage to homes in the area.
Though the funding never made it into the final bill, AML officials and residents continued to negotiate through 2009 on a new agreement that would allow state engineers to reinspect the homes, with an eye toward making new settlement offers to homeowners.
The homeowners believe the state's first settlement offers in December 2008 -- which were based on a state-contracted engineer's survey of the damage and repair/cost estimates -- won't adequately compensate for the needed repair work.
Several residents said they are still continuing to suffer damage to homes years after the project, including new cracks to ceilings, walls and driveways; gaps in windows and doors; slanting floors; and the subsidence holes, among others.
The 2007 dynamic compaction project was spurred by the city's long search for affordable housing.
City officials had been working for years to free up vacant lands within city limits that could not be developed for housing because they were located over old, unsafe underground mine voids.
For three weeks beginning in late July 2007, cranes pounded the ground with 25-ton and 35-ton weights to collapse the underground mine voids within a 61-acre tract of vacant land bordering the Tree Street area.
The huge weights were dropped more than 2,000 times before homeowner complaints halted the project several weeks later. Residents said the shock waves from the ground pounding shook houses, accelerated ongoing subsidence and severely damaged most homes in the area.
The state sent in engineers to assess 19 damage claims filed by homeowners under a settlement process established by the AML Division in 2008.
The state followed up with settlement offers based on the engineers' reports, but only two homeowners accepted the state's initial offers.
Big Lift
One frustrated homeowner decided to begin repairs and foot the bill this year, until an agreement can be reached concerning payments for damages.
The Big Drop subsidence project damaged the stately, historic Pine Street home of Karla and Dennis McAffee in downtown Rock Springs. The couple used a "Big Lift" solution to try to fix some of it in October.
A Utah contractor specializing in the installation of foundation support systems used a hydraulic lift to raise the north front and east side of the house in an effort to better stabilize it.
Karla McAffee said engineers were concerned about the structural safety of her damaged home and wanted to complete the project before the onset of winter.
The house was slumping on the east-side fireplace wall, and the Big Lift raised the front and side of the house several inches off the ground to make it more level.
McAffee said the family spent more than $65,000 on the repair project. She said engineers are planning another Big Lift -- possibly this year -- to stabilize the back end of the home that was built in the 1920s.
Also in October, state officials unveiled findings from investigative drilling conducted in various locations within the Tree Street neighborhood that aimed to better determine what's actually happening in the abandoned underground mine shafts and voids.
Geological engineers said there are a number of factors contributing to what's causing movement in the mine voids. Those factors include irregular roof pillars that are prone to collapse, groundwater fluctuations, and previous mitigation and grouting efforts.
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at