Posted: Sunday, September 9, 2007 12:00 am
Star-Tribune Editorial Board
This is a story with some big numbers: 25-ton weights, dropped 2,773 times outside downtown Rock Springs.
But the biggest and most important number to consider hasn't been calculated yet: What's this debacle going to cost Wyoming?
The mine subsidence project, designed to make about 840 acres available for affordable housing, had an original price tag of $2.4 million. The first weight was dropped July 17. No. 2,773 hit the ground on Aug. 6. That's the day the pilot project came to an abrupt (but not nearly soon enough) halt.
The end came after people howled to state officials and contractors that the ground pounding was damaging their homes. Not long afterward, some Ash Street homeowners reported feeling sick. Tests are still being done, but the culprit appears to be toxic hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S), which has leaked into the houses.
"Dynamic compaction" wasn't supposed to work this way. AML officials hoped collapsing the area's underground mine voids would be a quicker, less expensive solution than the traditional approach of injecting grout. Ground pounding has been used since the 1960s in other states - including Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia - as a tool to compact earth so foundations, bridges and highways can be built.
But before the Rock Springs project, the technique had never been used for mine reclamation on such a large scale.
The homeowners have a right to be upset, and they deserve to be made whole by the state. Before creating three weeks of artificial earthquakes, the state obviously should have conducted a better analysis of the potential impact.
Granted, assigning blame after the fact is far easier than foreseeing the problem. Lots of people who could have challenged the project's wisdom beforehand didn't - including the Star-Tribune.
But we aren't geologists. State officials get paid to understand this stuff.
State officials were contrite at a mid-August town meeting. John Corra, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the AML division, said the AML's insurance program would pay for repairing all the damaged houses.
That was fine, but then the state didn't update the residents about the project for more than two weeks. During that time, the AML director who oversaw the project (and shook hands over the compensation agreement) slipped quietly into early retirement. Last week, officials finally said the state intends to honor its commitment to pay for repairs.
It had better. The state caused this mess. Some residents have had to evacuate their homes until the gas problem is solved. Some homeowners probably will be unable to sell their homes for what they previously were worth.
The project's goal - to make more affordable housing available in an unusable area of Rock Springs - was admirable. But the state's attempt to make it happen was seriously flawed, and DEQ and AML officials need to make helping these injured people a priority.
The state should investigate what went wrong, and those responsible should be held accountable. Then officials should make sure this never happens to another Wyoming community.