May 7th, 2020 : The Earth Moved

[xoxoxoBruce]

♫ I feel the earth
Move
Under my feet
I feel the lawn tumbling down
♫ I feel my feet start to trembling
When I’m on Blackhawk ground

The evacuations continued when cavers explored the sinkhole Wednesday and Thursday and found it opened into an abandoned gypsum mine that’s at least 600 feet long and filled with holes from drilling and mining equipment. “I really never imagined that when we went back down there it would be that big,” said Adam Weaver, a member of Paha Sapa Grotto, a local caving group.

The cavers mapped 2,300 linear feet of passages, Pelczarski said. There were additional tunnels they couldn’t access because they were flooded or collapsed. Some of the tunnels were big – 12 feet high and 40 feet wide. The ceiling at one place in the mine was 30 feet above their heads, indicating a potentially thin surface above. The Dakota Plaster Company was owned by the United States Gypsum Company, held now by USG Corporation.

Old timers in the county say there was a dump/landfill in that area, but that Ford is a ’52-’54 and logic says
it should have been at least 10 years old when it was buried. That would place the landfill still open till at
least to the mid to late sixties, so it’s not ancient history.
All the homeowners insurance companies said, not our problem.

From a distance, Black Hawk might seem like nothing more than a random cluster of housing developments intermingled with a few businesses along Interstate 90.
But there's a strong sense of unity in this unorganized community.
Black Hawk's residents take pride in their history, their independence — even their 57718 ZIP code. And they do it without the need for a mayor or any of the regulations and taxes that come with city living.
The Meade County community has twice resisted incorporation efforts.

Huntrods said construction on the subdivision began in 1992 and was finished in a few years. He provided the name of the developer but the Journal couldn't find any information about the company online.
Huntrods said he's examining old aerial photographs and Google Earth images to see if other homes are at risk. He also said the Equalization and Planning Office is going through its records — which were only on paper at the time — to determine the development's history and regulations at the time.
Trudo said he wants to know if developers or a government agency knew the community was being built on top of an old mine. “Did they know they should not have built on this and somebody turned a blind eye so somebody could make a dollar?”

I see, you don’t want to pay taxes or have to follow any rules, but when the shit hits the fan...

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[Griff]

This is fast becoming a feature of The American Way ®