August 14,2007~ Broken Promises

ksl news video 1/18/2010

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

KSL John Hollenhorst

News Broadcast Thrusday Dec. 3, 2009

Here is a news broadcast that was done on Thursday December 3, 2009.

K2 News Neema Vadedi.

‘Big Lift’ aims to save home

JEFF GEARINO/Casper Star-Tribune
Atlas Piers worker Andy Jackson compacts the dirt underneath the McAffee home on Pine Street in the Tree Street neighborhood of Rock Springs on Tuesday in preparation for a Big Lift project scheduled for this morning that aims to stabilize the house. The home was damaged in 2007 from a pilot subsidence project conducted by the state






BIG DROP
DAN CEPEDA/Casper Star-TribuneStar-Tribune
Dennis and Karla McAffee sit in the living room of their home in Rock Springs, Wyo., in January 2009. The McAffees’ historic home, which was built in the mid-1920s, started to crumble after a state project of ground compression was started to reclaim land for development.

ROCK SPRINGS - The ill-fated "Big Drop" subsidence project damaged the stately, historic Pine Street home of Karla and Dennis McAffee.

Now comes the Big Lift to try to fix some of it.

Workers began repairs on the McAffee home last week, more than two years after the state's coal mine subsidence project was halted amid complaints of damage by residents of this city's "Tree Street" neighborhood.

A Utah contractor specializing in the installation of foundation support systems plans to use a hydraulic system to raise the north front and the east side of the house this morning in an effort to better stabilize the house.

Karla McAffee said the family is footing the project bill until an agreement with state Abandoned Mine Land Division officials can be reached concerning payments for damages.

She said engineers were concerned about the structural safety of her damaged home and recommended beginning the repairs before winter.

"We just can't go another winter" with two sides of the residence slumping so badly, she said.

"There are significant safety issues, and though we still haven't got this resolved with the state ... I have to do right by my family and by the other people in my community, because if that (column and wall) falls over, somebody could be injured or killed," she said.

The state has yet to settle with McAffee and more than a dozen other homeowners in the Tree Street area of downtown Rock Springs for damages from the subsidence project. As part of the project, 25- and 35-ton weights were dropped more than 2,000 times on a nearby tract of undeveloped land.

The "dynamic compaction" experiment was part of a pilot project that began in July 2007 that intended to collapse old, abandoned underground mine voids and stabilize the land for housing construction. But days after the weight dropping began, residents began complaining that the seismic vibrations were shaking houses, cracking foundations and walls, shifting garages and driveways, and accelerating ongoing subsidence.

AML officials offered to pay for damages that an Evanston-based engineer determined may have been caused by the dynamic compaction during initial inspections of the homes.

Three of the 19 homeowners submitting damage claims to the state for repairs from the project accepted the state's offer. The majority of affected residents, however, including the McAffees, refused the settlement offer as not being adequate to compensate for damages to their homes.

Attorneys for the homeowners and the state have been negotiating for months on a new agreement that would allow state engineers to reinspect the homes, with an eye toward making new settlement offers.

State officials met with Tree Street residents last week to discuss the initial findings from more than two years of investigative drilling in the neighborhood that sought to better determine what's actually happening in the abandoned underground mine shafts and voids.

The study by engineers with the Colorado-based Tetra Tech revealed that there's still movement in the numerous mines, but the exact cause remains unclear. The subsidence risk, unfortunately, remains high for the neighborhood, officials said.


Historic home

The McAffees' stately old house is situated on tree-lined Pine Street about three blocks from the dynamic-compaction project.

The solid-brick house was built by a prominent local doctor in 1924 and is considered one of the original old homes in Rock Springs. Over the years, the couple invested thousands of dollars in renovating the showcase home.

Both the upstairs and downstairs were remodeled, the roof was repaired and redone, and new concrete sidewalks and driveways were poured.

Shortly before the compaction project, the family bought custom-built windows for the whole house. The windows are now stored in the garage and may never be installed.

McAffee said the subsidence created by the shock waves moving through the underground rock formations slowly destroyed their home. The basement rolls, floors in the upstairs portion now slant and slope, numerous walls were cracked, doors won't close right, the new driveway is separating from the house, and the brick fireplace wall is leaning.

A key column holding up the northwest end of the house separated from the wall shortly after the project ended.

Last year, engineers installed a 15-foot steel pole to temporarily support the front corner of the living room. Some 30 other temporary poles now brace the rest of the house. McAffee fears the front end of the house will collapse onto the street and injure a passer-by.

"The fireplace was becoming an issue in addition to the column, so it's just the critical areas of the house that this first work is being done on," she said.

In the summer of 2008, the couple hired a Cheyenne contractor to inspect the damage and make repair cost estimates. The contractor's estimate was $197,000.

The state's structural engineer also inspected the home. The state's settlement offer was $39,581.


Hydraulic jacks

The Big Lift aims to lift and then stabilize the McAffee home using a hydraulic lifting system, according to project foreman Sam Perry.

The first part of the project involved digging out the driveway, front porch walkway and the concrete near the column and fireplace last week.

Perry said holes were then dug under the house into the underlying rock formations. He said 14 steel piers with manifolds were secured in the holes surrounding the north front and east side of the residence.

"We had to dig through about 3.5 feet of shale rock just under the house ... and then go down anywhere from 7 to 9 feet" to anchor the piers into the underlying rock formation, he said.

Permanent, L-shaped devices with 25-ton cylinder jacks have been attached to the house's foundation that will be linked with the steel piers.

Perry said the plan is for workers to use a sophisticated, computerized hydraulic system to lift the house and then secure the piers into place.

"This should really do the job as far as we're concerned," Perry said Tuesday while working at the job site. "I have no doubt this will stabilize the house."

Perry said once the hydraulics are in place, it should take only a few hours to raise the sloping house to its previous level. When that's completed, the piers and jacks will be backfilled and buried, and the concrete driveway and walkway will be replaced.

Contact Jeff Gearino at gearino@tribcsp.com or 307-875-5359.

DEQ to change subsidence work

Rock Springs, Wyo. - After a public meeting on Tuesday, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) and the City of Rock Springs have chosen to end all Dynamic Compaction (DC) work within the community.



“After listening to the public concerns over this project, we felt terminating the Dynamic Compaction work was the prudent thing to do,” said John Corra, director of the WDEQ. “However, mitigation work is still needed in the area to further protect public health and safety.”



“Mitigation work in Rock Springs must continue,” said Mayor Tim Kaumo. “John Corra has done a great job listening to our staff and residents and has made the right decision on changes on mitigation to protect the property and quality of life for our residents.”



During the project, several residents raised concerns that the DC work was causing damage to their homes. WDEQ officials suspended all work until after the public meeting.



“Based on our inspections and my personal observations its obvious that ground movement is occurring that has resulted in damage to some homes in the area,” said Evan Green, administrator, WDEQ Abandoned Mine Land division.



According to WDEQ, inspectors will be in contact with home owners to assess damages

Passing of a Dear Friend

1.THE TREE STREET FOLKS WILL TRAGICALLY MISS THIS MAN. JEFF HAS BEEN OUR
SAVIOR!! PLEASE KNOW JEFF, THAT AS YOU WONDER IN THE LANDS BEYOND, THAT
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN OUR HEARTS!! WE WILL MISS YOU MY DEAR FRIEND!
Becky Kelley







Jeffrey Gearino
Service:
Saturday, January 29, 2011
3:00 PM
Green River Fraternal Order of Eagles
88 N. 2nd E.
Green River, WY

Special Services:
Celebration of LIfe






Jeffrey David Gearino

Green River- Jeffrey David Gearino, 54, of Green River died Thursday, January 20, 2011 at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County, Rock Springs.
He was born April 26, 1956 in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of George D. and Grace E. Elrod Gearino.
He attended schools in Doraville, Georgia graduating from Sequoyah High School with the class of 1974. He graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens in 1977 receiving a bachelorÂ’s degree in journalism with a minor in photography.
He married Miriam "Mikki" Katherine Sanders April 15, 1978 in North Augusta, South Carolina.
He was first employed by the Edmonton Report in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.
He then worked as a journalist for the Green River Star, Rocket Miner, and most recently the Casper Star Tribune. He formerly worked as a bartender at the Red Feather in Green River.
His interests included bowling, golfing, fishing, playing horseshoes, gardening, and story telling. He was an avid BroncoÂ’s fan.
Survivors include his wife Mikki Gearino of Green River; two daughters, Jessica Lee Harrison and husband Dustin of Boise, Idaho, and Alicia Deane Griffin and husband Jessie of Rock Springs; brother George Daniel Gearino of Raleigh, North Carolina; grandson Rory Griffin of Rock Springs; several aunts and uncles; numerous nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents, grandson Ashton Davis Griffin, and sister-in-law Caroline Gearino.
Cremation has taken place at Fox Crematory, Rock Springs.
A celebration of his life will be held at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, January 29, 2011 at the Green River Fraternal Order of Eagles, 88 N. 2nd E., and Green River.
Friends and family are requested to wear casual dress - Bronco attire, flashing jewelry and mismatched shoe laces optional.
The family requests that donations be made to the Jeffrey Gearino Memorial Fund, State Bank, 30 Shoshone Ave., Green River, WY 82935





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COMMENTS:

2.God rest your soul Jeff Gearino, you were a true friend and we will all miss you deeply.
Bill Spillman

3.Rest in peace Jeff. We will truly miss you.
The Shafes

Wyoming needs to help Tree Street residents

It's high time for common sense to prevail and for the state of Wyoming to finally offer reasonable compensation to residents of Rock Springs' Tree Street neighborhood for damages to their homes.

For the fourth straight legislative session, more than a dozen residents have turned to lawmakers for help, but none seems to be forthcoming.

Lawmakers who have taken the time to tour the houses in the area have generally expressed support for the residents, who claim their homes were damaged by the state's experimental dynamic compaction project in July 2007. So did then-gubernatorial candidate Matt Mead, who examined the damage a year ago and said he was "stunned" by what he saw.

Last February, Mead followed up his visit with a letter to the residents that noted, "I see the considerable time the state has spent on this matter, and certainly all parties need finality and a conclusion ... The time for resolution is now."

We couldn't agree more. Now, in his capacity as the state's chief executive, we encourage Mead to do everything in his power to resolve the problems.

It's hindsight, of course, but it's no wonder the dynamic compaction process failed to work and has been blamed for making the Tree Street residents' lives nightmarish.

In an effort to free vacant lands that Rock Springs could use to build affordable housing, the new subsidence process repeatedly dropped 25- and 35-ton weights over undermined areas to collapse the underground mine voids on a tract of land near the Tree Street neighborhood. Contractors dropped the huge weights more than 2,000 times before the project was halted in mid-August 2007 after complaints from residents.

Some homes in the area have continued to experience damage, which owners attribute to accelerated subsidence from the dynamic compaction.

After offering homeowners incredibly low settlements, which all but three refused, 15 owners filed a lawsuit against the state of Wyoming last July when no other offers materialized. The state finally agreed to hire a Colorado engineering firm to reinspect the houses, but the company's report last November concluded it is "plausible but not likely" that the mine subsidence project damaged the homes.

For more than three and a half years, the state's focus has been solely on trying to establish if it could be blamed for the damages. But now that the engineer's report is finished, it's time for the state to finally recognize that whether or not the dynamic compaction process is the likely cause of the damage, the problems the homeowners have experienced are still the result of underground mine voids that should be covered using Abandoned Mine Lands funds.

The federal AML program taxes coal production to raise money to clean up abandoned coal mine sites. The damaged Tree Street homes are the perfect example of the type of project the money should be used for by Wyoming, which has received about $600 million in AML funds since 1997.

The only hitch is that state rules do not allow the Wyoming AML Division to purchase land or homes. So the guidelines need to be changed to better match federal AML standards, which are looser and more subject to interpretation, as several Sweetwater County representatives suggested last year. In the short budget session, however, the issue was not introduced.

The delay in making the homeowners' whole has been a travesty and an embarrassment to the state. Wyoming needs to right this wrong and, as Mead said last year, make certain no others will ever have to "endure this misery."

COMMENTS:
1.SDB said on: January 24, 2011, 10:54 am
I'm not an engineer and my knowledge in such things is limited, but my common sense made me question the idea of dropping 25 & 35 ton weights that close to town back when the idea was first proposed. I mean, that is a significant amount of weight and the whole GOAL of the project was to collaps underground tunnels. Wouldn't it make sense that this action would reverberate (or whatever the technical term is) throughout the ground of quite a ways? Doesn't is make sense that said reverberation would have an affect on nearby structures?

Again, I'm engineering is not my field of study, that's just one commoners take on the subject. Either way, those responsible for the weight dropping owe these homeowners fort the damage done. These people lived in that neighborhood before the hairbrained idea of collapsing the mine shafts in this way was proposed. There was no way they could have predicted this.

Todd does bring up a good point though...what about the contractor's insurance covering some of the damage. Certainly a contractor wouldn't have taken the job on without researching the right way to do such a thing. If they did, maybe they should bare some of the responsibility.

2.Todd said on: January 24, 2011, 6:06 am
State officials have not done themselves proud in this situation. It is way past time to pay up. If they had used a contrator with insurance it would have been taken care of several years ago.

3.notawyonative said on: January 26, 2011, 11:47 am
So who hired the guy to do the survey? If the state of wyoming did, I would not believe a word he says. They need to get a court appointed professional who is neutral to the situation

4.chillywilly said on: January 29, 2011, 9:43 am
So Mac thinks it is OK if a person's lifelong sweat and toil to better oneself is destroyed and stolen from you so the rest of society can benefit. That does sound like socialism or communism to me. I am one of the people who has received this benificent treatment from the state of wyoming. Here is the truth that the state won't allow to be spoken: (1).There was no insurance offered to anyone in the tree streets area until after the damage had been done. (2). Subsidence maps of the city were altered from being labeled as high risk to low risk so that dynamic commpaction could be done. (3) 2700 richter scale 4 earthquakes in 3 weeks. It shattered the sidewalks, foundations and concrete slabs upon which our residences had sat undisturbed for30 to a hundred years.(4) Personally, now my sewer drainage does not work as it should due to the subsidence and ground movement and is costing me lots of dollars just in 2-3 roto rootings a year. Mac, do you like cleaning #### off floors and walls after a roto rooter has been working in your basement? I am only the second owner of a home built in the 70's and this house is coming apart around me I had 6 of the best state employee engineers look at my house over a two year time and not a single one of those worthless, supposed engineers noted or at least told me about it, that the furnace natural gas supply line had dropped onto the exhaust manifold for that furnace, crushing the exhaust line and quite frankly my wife and I sat on top of a potential bomb for 3 years until I noticed it and immediately, at some significant cost, rectified the situation. We had bought this house 3 years prior to dynamic compaction,after having the required mortgage assessment and I had inquired of the mortgage representative who I had used before about subsidence insurance and was told no I did not need it where we were moving. I had subsidence insurance at the other house and it is not a big deal, as you pay $300 a year and that supposedly covers you for subsidence.
If not for the help a dearly beloved,sorely missed,and now departed Jeff Gearino who won major awards for his reporting on this fiasco, we would probably not even be at this point. The state has lied, stolen, and refused any honorable attempt at resolution. Liars and thieves, that is the makeup of wyoming state government officials & dept heads.
I know this is a long winded rant but it only covers the tip of the iceberg of what tree street residents are having to put up with while a lying and thieving state government stonewalls us. We all met every condition the state put in front of us at our own costs: new assessments, now we have to buy subsidence insurance that is not worth the paper it is written on as the state denies there are related subsidence problems, we have all had to pay for bids to repair, submitted them to the state and then get lowballed pennies on the dollar. Finally at the three year mark, when statute of limitations regulations came into effect, we were forced to file a suit. The state has been most dishonorable in their dealings with us, and what really galls me is that the new governor has put the same incompetent back in charge of wyoming DEQ and praised the good job he has done. What a bunch of boot licking. I could go on and on about damages that I and other tree streeters are dealing with, but it would take pages. Wyoming DEQ is out of control, is lead by incompetents. Polluted water tables now in Pavillion, ozone alerts and poisonus air in Pinedale, millions and millions of dollars being poured down rat holes in the name of subsidence grouting. Watch out Gillette, they are coming your way.

Tree Street residents seek lawmakers' help again

DAN CEPEDA 'Tree Street' residents Becky Kelley and Donna Maynard talk with Gov. Matt Mead after Mead's first-ever State of the State address on Wednesday at the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne. This is the fourth consecutive legislative session that Kelley and Maynard have attended as they try to get compensation for homes they say were damaged by dynamic compaction in Rock Springs. (Dan Cepeda/Star-Tribune)


By JEFF GEARINO - Southwest Wyoming bureau trib.com | Posted: Saturday, January 15, 2011 1:15 am

GREEN RIVER -- For four consecutive legislative sessions, two Rock Springs residents have been using any means they can to catch the attention of lawmakers while they wait for the state to pay for repairs to their homes they say were damaged by a controversial mine subsidence project in 2007.

"Tree Street" homeowners Becky Kelley and Donna Maynard prowled the State Capitol halls in Cheyenne most of this week, both sporting bright orange buttons on their lapels.

The button shows 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."

The ill-fated project conducted by the Wyoming Abandoned Mine Lands Division -- which aimed to free vacant lands in the city that could be used to build affordable housing

-- employed a new subsidence process known as dynamic compaction.

Dynamic compaction involved dropping 25- 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, residents claim.

Since then, more than a dozen homeowners in the neighborhood have been battling the state after residents rejected the state's first settlement offers in 2008.

Homeowners had hoped that reinspections by a Colorado-based engineering firm this summer would serve as the basis for new settlement offers from Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg.

But Salzburg said in November there would be no new offers to residents based on the reinspections. Salzburg said he could find no basis in the engineer's report upon which to make any settlement offers to residents.

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 this week meeting with lawmakers, with new Gov. Matt Mead and just about anyone who would listen to them.

"I truly believe things are going to start turning around ... we're still hoping for some relief from the legislators this session," Kelley said.

"I sure pray Gov. Mead comes through for us ... hopefully, we'll have some answers soon," she said.

Kelley said she and other homeowners continue to experience new damage from subsidence, which they believe is caused by residual effects from the dynamic compaction project.

She said gauges installed by AML engineers in and around her home continue to show movement.

In recent months, several window panes have broken at her home on Ash Street and new cracks have appeared in the driveway. "It's spooky," she said.

Kelley said if a legislative solution can't be reached, then residents will pin their hopes on a lawsuit filed by 15 plaintiffs against the state of Wyoming in Sweetwater County District Court in Green River in July.

Heard the frustration

On Jan. 27 -- at the invitation of Kelley, Maynard and other Tree Street residents -- then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Mead toured four homes and an apartment complex to get a firsthand look at the damage they say was caused by the dynamic compaction project.

Like other lawmakers who toured the homes, Mead said at the time he was stunned by what he saw.

The rancher, who served as U.S. Attorney for Wyoming from 2001 to 2007, urged residents to continue to inform the public of their plight and to keep fighting for a fair and equitable solution from the state.

"Having seen five damaged structures first-hand, I acknowledge the hardship to you ... and the time that has elapsed without getting anything resolved with the state," Mead wrote in a follow-up letter to residents dated Feb. 24.

"I have seen the damage ... I have heard the frustration," Mead wrote.

"I see the considerable time the state has spent on the matter; and certainly all parties need finality and a conclusion to this difficult matter," he said. "The time for resolution is now."

Mead offered several suggestions concerning his "view of things that could be done" to help resolve the issue.

Mead told residents decision-makers from the state should first tour the area to see the damaged homes.

Second, "fair current damage assessment (including effects of any continued ground movements) and mediation processes should be agreed upon and undertaken expeditiously, followed by a speedy process to make the landowners whole as a result of the dynamic compaction project," he wrote.

Mead also urged property owners to keep "public focus" on the matter pending a satisfactory resolution and to continue their efforts for assistance through legislation.

"The state should have a plan for the future, which at a minimum requires notice to nearby landowners before similar remediation efforts are ever done -- we don't want others to endure this misery," the letter said.

Contact southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino at 307-875-5359 or gearino@tribcsp.com

RELATED STORY

About the dynamic compaction project

More than a dozen residents of the "Tree Street" neighborhood in downtown Rock Springs have been seeking relief from state government over a controversial mine subsidence project conducted during the summer of 2007.

The project was the result of a decade-long search by city officials to free previously undeveloped lands for much-needed housing projects. But most of the vacant lands in the city are located over old, underground mine voids.

State Department of Environmental Quality rules forbid the agency's Abandoned Mine Land Division from conducting any subsidence mitigation work on undeveloped lands.

So the city sought and received special permission from then-Gov. Dave Freudenthal and the AML to conduct a special reclamation project within a 61-acre tract identified by city officials as most suitable.

A key component of the project was the use of a pilot reclamation technique known as dynamic compaction.

For three weeks beginning in late July 2007, cranes pounded the ground with 25- and 35-ton weights to collapse the underground mine voids on the vacant tract of land, which borders the Tree Street neighborhood.

Contractors dropped the huge weights more than 2,000 times before the project was halted in mid-August after complaints from residents.

Homeowners contended the shock waves from the ground pounding shook houses, severely damaged many homes in the area and needlessly accelerated ongoing subsidence in the neighborhood.

AML officials said at the time they would pay for any damage to homes resulting from the dynamic compaction portion of the project.

The state sent in engineers to assess the 19 damage claims filed by homeowners under a settlement process established by the AML Division. The state then sent settlement offers to each homeowners based on the engineer's report.

So far, only three homeowners have accepted the offers. The other homeowners believe the offer was way too low and would not adequately compensate residents for needed repairs to homes.

In May, state-contracted engineers performed a second round of inspections on the damaged homes at the behest of Wyoming legislators. State lawmakers allocated $120,000 to pay for the new damage assessments of the homes.

But the final engineers' report from the reinspections of homes didn't support making new offers to homeowners to pay for repairs, according to state officials.

The report said it was plausible, but not likely that the dynamic compaction portion of the project caused the damage to Tree Street homes.

-- Jeff Gearino

Wind Blowing through our "closed" windows

Here are some videos of the wind blowing through our windows. One window has plastic over it to help keep the heat in, and one window does not have the plastic.

More Movement

Here is a picture of a gauge showing new movement at the Kelley Residence.