Taking their case to the Capitol

Owners of damaged homes lobby legislators.
By JEFF GEARINO - Southwest Wyoming bureau Posted: Monday, February 15, 2010 12:15 am


ROCK SPRINGS -- While "Tree Street" homeowners Becky Kelley and Donna Maynard prowled the State Capital halls in Cheyenne most of last week, the pair sported bright orange buttons on their lapels.
The buttons show a crane with a heavy weight suspended over a cracked and skewed house, superimposed over a boxing glove.
"Dynamic Compaction July 2007" is written in capital letters across the button, along with "state funded pilot project wrecked our homes."
For three straight legislative sessions, the two Rock Springs residents have been using any means they can to catch the eyes of lawmakers while they wait for the state to pay for repairs to their beleaguered homes they say were damaged by a controversial mine subsidence project in 2007.
State officials and attorneys representing the homeowners have been engaged for over a year in discussions to finalize the details of a mediation agreement. Both parties hope the agreement will lead to new inspections of damaged homes, with an eye toward a final financial settlement.
The ill-fated project conducted by the Wyoming Abandoned Mine Lands Division -- which aimed to free up vacant lands in the city that could be used to build affordable housing -- employed a new subsidence process known as dynamic compaction. It involved dropping 25-ton and 35-ton weights over undermined areas to collapse the underground mine voids on a vacant tract of land near the Tree Street neighborhood.
But the project ended up damaging nearly 20 homes in the area, the owners say.
Kelley, the unofficial spokeswoman for the Tree Street residents, said she and other homeowners continue to be frustrated with the slow pace of the resolution process. She and Maynard spent last week in Cheyenne meeting with lawmakers and talking to "anyone who will listen to us."
On Wednesday, the pair completed a daylong lobbying class through the Equality State Policy Center. "The class went very well ... We found that we have a lot of supporters," Kelley said.
Pilot project
At the request of Mayor Tim Kaumo in 2006, the city began discussions with AML officials and Gov. Dave Freudenthal about possibly using AML money to mitigate some lands within the city that had not been looked at for development before because of old mine voids.
State rules forbid the AML Division from conducting subsidence work on undeveloped lands. However, the city received special permission from the state to conduct a $2.4 million pilot subsidence project using dynamic compaction on a tract of land next to the Tree Street neighborhood.
For three weeks beginning July 17, 2007, AML contractors using cranes dropped the weights about 2,300 times before residents' complaints halted the project.
Homeowners contend vibrations from the dynamic compaction severely damaged more than a dozen homes, cracking foundations, ceilings and walls, driveways, opening sinkholes in some yards, and causing gaps in windows and door frames, among other damage.
AML directors told residents during a contentious town meeting in mid-August 2007 that the state would pay for all repairs to homes damaged by the dynamic compaction portion of the project. But homeowners contended the state's first settlement offers -- which were based on a state-contracted engineer's assessment of the damage and estimated repair costs -- weren't nearly adequate to fairly compensate homeowners for the needed repair work.
Double recovery
Over the past few weeks, a bevy of southwest Wyoming lawmakers and gubernatorial candidates has toured homes in the Tree Street area to get a firsthand look at the damage.
Following a tour last month, Sen. Stan Cooper, R-Kemmerer, sent Freudenthal a letter urging the governor to break what he called the "bureaucratic impasse" that seemed to be preventing a satisfactory financial resolution for homeowners.
Last week, Freudenthal released his Jan. 28 response to Cooper's letter that said the state is continuing to work to resolve the problem and that it would be irresponsible to simply begin writing checks to homeowners for damage repairs.
Any state compensation must be tied to the damage which is likely to have been caused by the dynamic compaction project, rather than subsidence events which have plagued Rock Springs for decades, Freudenthal wrote.
The governor said the state is willing to fund up to $275,000 in repairs per structure. And he said the state is willing to accept the findings from new inspections by a mutually agreed upon engineering firm.
In a memorandum to Freudenthal's letter, state Attorney General Bruce Salzburg said while homeowners were negotiating the terms of the mediation agreement, the claimants filed a lawsuit in Sweetwater County District Court in July against two of the state's consulting engineers who had done work for the AML related to the dynamic compaction project.
Salzburg said the filing of the lawsuit raised the question of a possible "double recovery" for homeowners.
The terms of any settlement agreement to resolve the claims must account for the pending lawsuits so there is not double recovery, Salzburg wrote.
Misleading
But the manager of the nearby Springview Manor Apartment complex that was damaged during the project said last week that homeowners had no recourse except to address the partners and agents of the AML Division through a lawsuit.
Built in 1972, the complex was constructed in part to provide affordable housing for Rock Springs residents during the Jim Bridger Power Plant construction boom.
Dino Moncecchi of the Casper-based Spartan Management LCC, which manages the 17-unit apartment complex, said in a Feb. 3 letter to Freudenthal and phone interview that Salzburg's contention that homeowners are seeking double recovery is "misleading at best."
Moncecchi said homeowners filed the lawsuit in July, just 30 days before the statute of limitations ran out, on the advice of their attorneys.
"If we're not going to get money out of the state, we're forced to go somewhere else," he said.
Moncecchi noted four, three-story apartment buildings and many of the 59 apartments in the tidy, low-income complex suffered damage during the project. Window frames have separated from walls, kitchen and hallway floors slope, and numerous double-pane windows were broken as a result of the dynamic compaction, he said.
Hallway doors pulled away from frames and won't open now as a result of the project, some fire doors won't shut, stairwells were cracked, and various pipes and drains are plugged, among other damage. Damage repairs could end up costing millions of dollars, he said.
The state's first settlement offer for repairs to the complex was $4,918.
Moncecchi said the state's proposed financial damage limit of $275,000 per structure is "ludicrous."
He said the limit may be sufficient for most of the single-family residences, but it won't be for the 17-unit apartment building, which must meet federal Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations and inspections to continue to operate.
"For Springview Manor, we are talking about the safety of 59 families," Moncecchi said.
"The hope is that those funds will suffice, but I have a fiduciary duty to the ownership of Springview Manor and clearly my acceptance of that sum would violate that obligation," he wrote to the governor.
Moncecchi said the state should also monitor and stabilize, if necessary, the ground that the AML Division destabilized by the dynamic compaction.
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.