Tree Street residents still looking for justice

Star-Tribune Editorial Board Posted: Sunday, February 28, 2010 12:15 am

The wheels of justice continue to grind slowly for Rock Springs residents whose homes were damaged following a controversial 2007 state Abandoned Mine Lands mine subsidence project.
Both the Wyoming House and Senate last week passed budget amendments that would allocate $120,000 to hire a qualified engineer to re-inspect several Tree Street houses to assess damages.
It's a step in the right direction, and may eventually lead to a settlement in the high-profile case, which is now more than two and a half years old. Still, we're mystified why it's taken the state of Wyoming this much time to do the right thing. This incident is precisely the type of problem that AML funds are supposed to be used to fix.
In July 2007, the Wyoming AML Division began a $2.8 million pilot reclamation project near the Tree Street neighborhood in Rock Springs. It was designed to free up vacant lands in the city so they could be developed for affordable housing. A new, unproven technique called "dynamic compaction" was used that involved dropping 25-ton and 35-ton weights over undermined areas to collapse the underground mine voids.
The weights were dropped about 2,300 times over three weeks before neighbors' complaints finally halted the project. Nineteen residents blamed vibrations from dynamic compaction for damaging their homes, cracking foundations, driveways, ceilings and walls, and opening sinkholes in some yards.
AML directors initially said the state would pay for all repairs to homes. But the initial offers were so low, they were rejected by all but two homeowners. Many of the 59 apartments in four three-story apartment buildings were damaged, but the state's first offer was less than $5,000.
Negotiations have continued for more than a year. One of the sticking points has been determining what damage was done by dynamic compaction and what might be the result of subsidence events that have plagued Rock Springs for decades. It will take an impartial, qualified engineer to sort that conflict out, which is what the Legislature agreed to fund.
Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the state is willing to pay up to $275,000 in repairs per structure, which may satisfy some homeowners. But the manager of the apartment complex, Dino Moncecchi, called the amount "ludicrous" for the damage to his buildings.
The governor responded to one legislator's plea to resolve the "bureaucratic impasse" by noting that the state can't just begin writing checks out to residents without determining what caused the damages. Freudenthal is correct in his assertion that there has to be a "factual and legal basis" for any payment made by the state. It may never be known precisely how much damage was caused by dynamic compaction.
But here's what we do know: homeowners didn't report any problems until the weights were dropped. Their homes weren't cracking and falling apart until the AML project began. It makes sense that AML funds should be available to help fix the problems most likely caused by the state's mine reclamation efforts.
One more thing: Attorney General Bruce Salzburg criticized homeowners who filed a lawsuit in Sweetwater County District Court last July against two of the state's consulting engineers who had worked on the project. He said there must be no "double recovery" by the homeowners.
But the suit was only filed because there were just 30 days left before the statute of limitations ran out, and after two years the state still hadn't settled the case. It's insulting for the state -- which held up the case -- to blame homeowners for seeking a legal remedy to recoup their losses.
Posted in Editorial on Sunday, February 28, 2010 12:15 am Updated: 11:36 pm. Tags: Chad Baldwin, Editorial, Editorial Board, Kerry Drake, Nathan Bekke, Opinion, Ron Gullberg, Sally Ann Shurmur, Rock Springs, Abandoned Mine Lands Division