'Tree Street' residents accuse Wyoming Gov. Mead of backing off campaign promise

CHEYENNE — Nearly four years after the start of a controversial mine subsidence project they say wrecked their homes, residents in the “Tree Street” neighborhood of Rock Springs are still waiting for the state to compensate them.
And now, they’ve become increasingly frustrated with the man they had considered their biggest champion: Gov. Matt Mead.
In July 2007, the Wyoming Abandoned Mine Land Division began pounding a 61-acre tract near downtown Rock Springs with 25- and 35-ton weights to collapse underground mine voids so that affordable housing could safely be built on the land.
After several weeks of “dynamic compaction,” the project ended up damaging nearly 20 homes in the area, the owners claim. Walls and driveways cracked, sinkholes opened up underneath their property and natural gas from broken underground pipes started seeping into homes.
The state offered compensation, but several homeowners said the offers were far too low and filed suit against the state last July. They’re seeking about $6 million in AML money for repairs and to recompense homeowners for houses they say are completely unrecoverable.
During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Mead devoted a significant amount of attention to the controversy, touring the damaged homes and promising to address the issue as governor.
“If I am elected Governor,” Mead wrote in an email to Tree Street homeowner Becky Kelley last September, “I will see that any outstanding reports are completed and provided to you and that the matter is resolved expeditiously.”
Heartened by his words, most Tree Street residents say they voted for Mead last November.
But now that Mead is governor, several Tree Street residents believe he’s changed his tune.
In March, several residents said, state Attorney General Greg Phillips sent the same compensation offer made to them in 2008.
Since then, Kelley said Mead has started putting off their phone calls and emails.
“[Mead] told me he would fight for me and he would get something done for our homes,” she said. “I felt he was an honest, honorable person. And I’m finding out that that’s not the truth.”
Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said the governor remains eager as ever to resolve the problem, but legal issues are getting in the way.
The reason he had stopped talking to Tree Street residents for a time, MacKay said, is that because of the lawsuit; once he was sworn in as governor he had to get permission to speak with the litigants. Once he got that permission, he called homeowner Donna Maynard late last month to discuss the issue.
In the phone call, Mead said that the state never officially received rejections of the 2008 offers from most of the homeowners. Maynard said the governor then recommended that homeowners unhappy with the 2008 offer should write formal rejection letters, then write a second letter stating how much money they need.
“The governor wants to get this taken care of, and it’s not like he’s resisting at any point,” MacKay said.
State Rep. Bernadine Craft, D-Rock Springs, who represents the Tree Street residents in the Wyoming House, said she gives Mead the benefit of the doubt that he wants to do what he can to set things right.
“I think what we’re doing now is we’re arguing over numbers and we’re arguing over dollars,” she said.
But as the debate continues, she said, the Tree Street houses continue to deteriorate to the point that people’s lives are in danger.
“Sinkholes are opening up, houses are worsened,” she said. “I’m terribly frightened that it’s a time bomb, that it’s just a question of time until someone is badly hurt.”

COMMENTS:

1.Teresa Shafe said on: June 11, 2011, 7:26 pm
@chillywilly and the other Tree Street folks, hang in there. I believe at some point justice will prevail. What happened to your homes is a shame and honestly, I don't know how these people sleep at night. They are totally cognizant of what they did and yet have spent so much time and energy to dodge their responsibilies. Now, Governor Mead has joined them and I am so disgusted with my party. I am a life-long Republican who most likely will shifting parties in the next election.
It seems the working man has no value to the Republican party. That is what the Tree Street residents are made of, they are all working class folks, which in Wyoming was supposed to mean something. Evidently not!

I feel your pain if only on a secondary level. My son purchased his first home at the tender age of 22, his wife was 19. He has worked very hard for everything he has. But, he can't make any improvements on his home because, frankly, it is falling down around his ears. When he has his siblings spend the night I say a prayer that his house will stand for yet another day.

I went down and saw that huge sink hole, which by Charlie Love's estimate was at least 40 feet deep. Charlie, is a well-respected geologist who has strong feelings about the stability of the land that your homes now stand on and the belt loop. But, goodness, why would they value a man's opinion when he has spent his whole life studying geology.

Yeah, you guys are getting screwed royally. And, as time goes on you will continue to get screwed. Nobody seems to give a damn except those that witness your pain first hand. But, please, don't give up. Somewhere, somebody has to have a conscious even it its none of these guys.

2.chillywilly said on: June 11, 2011, 9:20 am
I am not going to respond to Rock Springs Guy. Everything he says is totally wrong. Once again it is proven that little or no knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Tree street residents were minding our own business, working, paying bills, and working on improving our lives and homes. Along comes Wyoming DEQ and 500 million of coal severannce tax money from the feds. As the level of competence in State engineers is less than that found any where in private industry or any circus big top, these clowns developed a dynamic compaction project. What a plan. Lets go right into the middle of a large residential area of homes, churches, schools, etc. and ring everyones chimes with a swarm of richter 4 earthquakes,once a minute for as long as we can get away with it. Standard operating procedure before any DEQ-AML project is to pre assess surrounding properties and at least offer subsidence insurance, so that if something does go awry, it can be dealt with. NOT HERE. Residents barely got a notice in Fridays local paper that on Monday DEQ was going to start pounding the hell out of the ground and there was nothing going to stop it.
My wife and I both work at menial jobs during the day in order to have a home and yard. We would come home and sit in the house after work and watch the 35 & 50 ton wrecking balls get hoisted up to the top of two cranes and then get thrown down on the ground. The windows would shake, the house would vibrate, and we just look at each other and say, "I hope they know what they are doing." Well they didnt have a clue, but that was suspicioned from the first as they were state employees after all. Abandoned mine gases were released, sinkholes started appearing next to homes, and concrete slabs and foundations started breaking and concrete slabs were fracturing. After 3 weeks of this DEQ finally figured out that these residents weren't BSing them and they finally quit with the earthquakes. The damage was done. Those SOB's destroyed every bit of concrete structure on my property. The slab underneath my house that was my finished basement. The concrete stem walls that hold up the rest of my house were fractured and split apart, my sewer line may have suffered a partial collapse and this has only become apparent as the years have passed since dynamic compaction with me needing to have a local plumber come in and attempt (mostly unsuccessfully) to clear my line. I have been left with a house that is unrepairable, has most of my lifes savings tied up in it, and the state of Wyoming and city of Rock Springs are responsible. Those entities think that I need to suck it up and quit ####ing about it. Would you?

So dynamic compaction ends, then the other insults start. Head of DEQ, John Corra, and a bunch of his monkeys, tell the Tree Street residents they are going to fix everything and make us homeowners "whole again". During the next 2 months and 6 public meetings, there were never more lies spoken and thievery condoned than happened to the Tree Street residents during those meetings.

Tree street residents were assured that all their concerns would be addressedd. All we needed to do was get some contractor estimates and get them submitted by Christmas. It was and is impossible to get contractor estimates, except by Wyoming state employee-drones who care less about reality and the wreck that they caused. Residents were offered mere cents on the dollar for damages caused. They were ludicrous and ridiculous offers. We jumped through all their hoops and have been treated like we caused this problem. Several times since the state has requested again settlement amounts based on damages and residents have submitted realistic settlements based on the little cooperation that local contractors would supply and residents paid for with no help from the state, only to get more STALL, DELAY,and no intention by the State to deal honestly with us. The State of Wyoming government officials are nothing but a bunch of liars, thieves, and incompetent assess if you look at them from my view point. Did I mention that the new Attorney General was in Rock Springs touring our homes when a new sink hole, big enough to park a Greyhound bus in, opened up underneath exactly where dynamic compaction pounded the ground for 3 weeks and he and his boss, Governor Mead, still fail completely to fulfill their swarn duty to protect the citizens of the state of Wyoming, of who the Tree Street Residents do make up a group of. This is what Tree Street residents continue to face: Continuing ground movement underneath our neighborhoods causing a likelihood of injury of death, continuing destruction and theft of our property and homes, and insults by state government employees who are insulting to anyone who has to work in private industry. A more worthless bunch never existed anywhere.

Now there is a large tract of scraped bare land in the middle of Rock Springs that is supposedly ready for new housing and development. I am only the second owner of this destroyed home, it was not cheap or cheaply built, and like most or all of the Tree street homes is not over 50 years old. So, now there is at some point going to be housing put on this land that overlays mine workings. Now when you but a house on that land, you will need to be prepared that you will not be able to sell it because history demonstrates that the second proerty owner will get stiffed with a broken and damaged home that no one in their right mind wants. That is the situation Tree Street residents find them selves in. First and second owners have homes not worth anything and that will be what property owners who buy on land over the dynamic compaction property will face. These huge sinkholes continue to open up in the streets, next to our homes, and the AML dynamic compaction people have not even left town yet. We got screwed, continue to get screwed by a government made up of ignorant and incompetent sycophants who arent fit or competent to dig a hole in the ground. At this point, Tree Street residents have been left with no recourse but to make this public knowledge. Read my next long winded rant, because it will be on a DEQ AML that is out of control and wasting, completely wasting, not taxpayers dollars, but the past wealth of Wyoming and Montana, the coal severance monies and they are not qualified to spend a dime of that money.